Games are great motivators, and often prove excellent ways to produce language and build rapport in class. I use games at various stages in a lesson, and for different purposes. I often make up or adapt a lot of games to fit the material I teach, but I do have a huge collection of actual party games that I've found quite useful in class. I've already shared about how they might be used to develop fluency, learn new vocabulary, and even to inspire innovation. In this post, I'll share a few quick games that are great for perking up energy and interest, and are often my go-to warm-ups to start a class, intermediate level and up.
What these games have in common, besides being quick, language-generating energy-boosters, is the element of stress. Not the bad kind, but the adrenaline-rushing, laughter-inducing kind that forces players to take action. Each game has a noisy device that reminds players of the time limit while freaking them out, just enough to be fun.
Five Second Rule
I haven't explained the expression to students yet--how food that falls on the floor has an unofficial five seconds to be picked up and eaten before it's considered dirty. But the game's rules are unrelated and pretty straightforward. The timer is flipped over, and it makes a whompy howling noise, and the players have five seconds until the balls fall all the way down to name three things in a category. Some examples are movie theater snacks, ways to procrastinate, annoying things cats do, Star Wars Characters, etc. I always sort the cards to make sure we're dealing with categories that I know my students are familiar with, pulling out any that are too obscure, too difficult, or not widely known in this culture.
The original way to play is with individual players and no teams. If a player can name three things in the time limit, they keep the card. If they can't, the next player going around the circle has a chance, but can't name any of the same ones that the first player named.
I change the rules for class. I let students work in pairs. That way if one's mind goes blank, the other can back them up. Usually, on a successful round, each player names one or two of the items, reaching three quickly. I also don't usually give the next team a chance to claim a card that wasn't successfully played. I find it's smoother just to give each team a new one.
I have the pre-sorted cards at the front of the deck, and I invite a player to grab one and read it aloud so that everyone can hear it. As soon as I am sure they understand what it's asking, I flip the timer. Sometimes I have to clarify something--like that the word "beverage" means drink, when asked to name "3 bottled beverages." So I give them a second or two of grace before the task begins. Some categories are easier than others, of course, but cards are drawn at random, and you get what you get.
The reactions to this game are always panic, production, relief, and laughter. I've played this game both with students and with my family in the U.S., and it's amusingly terrifying how your mind can suddenly go blank. Lots of drama ensues. In class, we'll go around the circle three or four times--it's a quick-moving game, and overdoing it would kill it, so I keep it brief.
Sometimes we play with cards I've made, with categories related to things we've been discussing in class, to encourage students to produce recently-learned vocabulary. I suppose this game could be played with homemade cards and any kind of timer, but the noisy one that makes it memorable and the often surprising categories on the cards made it well-worth the investment.
Heads Up
The expression "heads up," of course, is a warning to be attentive, and you definitely need to stay sharp to play this game. It was developed and made famous by Ellen Degeneres, and is an app that can be downloaded. Depending on the version or the device, it's free, although additional category sets can be purchased later.
It is typically played in teams of two players, but I prefer to divide the class into two teams, to get more brains working together. One player puts the phone on their forehead, screen facing the crowd. A word appears, which the person in the hot spot can't see, but everyone else can. As soon as the player guesses the word, with help from their team, the phone is flipped down to get another word. If they don't know the word and want to pass, the phone is flipped upward. The number of words guessed in one minute become points for the team. Rhyming is not allowed as a clue, but all other kinds of descriptions and actions are, and it's both unnerving and hilarious to see everyone staring at your forehead and shouting things.
The game app has an option to film the game so that players can watch the antics in instant replay, but I opt out of that. I haven't used it on enough of a a regular basis to be aware of any problems or flukes with the app itself; the times I have used it, it has worked beautifully. Ellen's version of the game has a few free category decks to choose from, and others to be purchased. I've mostly used "Icons, Legends, and Stars," in units talking about celebrities or pop culture, but depending on the age of the group, there may be many obscure names there. There's one on animals, which has a mixture of creatures that students will know, as well as more difficult ones like weasel and stink bug that would likely have to be passed. I'll probably use "Act It Out," but let students speak as well as act in an upcoming unit about sports and being active. There are various similar apps that are more for kids, which might better suit particular groups, and there's even a variation of the original that has only pictures for kids who don't read yet.
There's another alternative version of the game called Guess Word. I like how you can choose one category (such as movies or animals), or click on a few and mix them together. But what I like even more is how you can make your own category and enter your own words! I haven't tried this yet, but you can be sure I'll be entering specific vocabulary learned in class!
Catch Phrase
This is a favorite from parties back in the U.S.! Catch Phrase is a disk that is passed around the circle like a hot potato while a timer beeps away. A word appears in the window, and the player has to describe it for their team to guess. As soon as they guess it, the disk is passed to the next person in the circle. Teams are always A-B-A-B--the person next to you is on the opposite team. You don't want to be holding the disc at the end of the time--it means the other team gets a point! The other team can also "steal" the word that had just been described when the timer stopped, earning an additional point. They have a moment to discuss among themselves and then can make one guess, based on the clues that have already been shared. If correct, they can earn two points total.
I have the old version of Catch Phrase, which comes with round paper cards that are inserted into the disk. The advantage of this over the newer electronic version is that as a teacher, I can preview the cards on the disc, and pre-teach any new expressions. That's what I'll do in a game-oriented conversation class. Despite the idea of a catch phrase being something that's well-known from pop culture, there are a lot of expressions that English students won't recognize. Because of that, I don't often play this game in regular classes, because I don't have time to teach a lot of incidental vocabulary for a warm-up game. When I do use it, however, I let students click the button as many times as needed to skip unknown words, and that works well.
An easy alternative to this game is the app Outbursts, which was free to download on my iPhone. It works in exactly the same way, and, although there are some words that are obscure and need to be passed with a simple swipe, there are not as many difficult ones as in Catch Phrase. The app also has the same built-in timer, which simultaneously drives students crazy and motivates them toward better communication. It's a great way to fill in the final four minutes of class before the bell rings in the rare occasion that we've done everything we need to with time to spare. Any of these games could also serve as mid-lesson a brain break, but I like them best as a warm-up at the beginning of class.
I'm the kind of person who always has games ready at a party, as ice breakers and ways for mixed groups of friends to get to know each other without the agony of extended small talk. I hope by bringing games into classes that I can occasionally create a kind of party atmosphere, where people are challenged to step out of their comfort zones a little and connect with others in a new way. The silly stress that these quick games and their gimmicky timers produce brings exactly the kind of fun, productive energy I like to start class with.
Sometimes stress can be fun, and when it is, it has powerful effects on groups and individuals. What are your favorite--or least favorite--games or icebreakers? How do you harness the energy of stress and make it into something beneficial, productive, or even fun?
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