This activity might take a large portion of class time so you'll need to be sure the JTE is on board for that. In this activity, students will have to get creative, use their group work skills, negotiate, and even get a bit artistic so it's really great for building important life skills in addition to the English grammar point of the day.
Basic Info
| Time: | 20 ~ 40 mins |
|---|---|
| Level: | Junior high grade 1 |
| Works with: | Can you ski? (Can she ...?) |
| Class size: | Medium to large |
You will need:
- Paper (for students to draw their superhero)
Description
In this activity, students must assign superpowers to their superhero. To make it interesting, group super powers into pairs or threes where only one can be chosen, so students will have difficult choices to make.
- First, introduce the superpowers to students. You may wish to ask for suggestions from the students.
- Group the superpowers. For this, you should group superpowers by level, so students really have to think about which superpower they want.
- Once all the superpowers have been decided and grouped, students choose which superpowers their superhero will have.
- Groups then draw their superhero.
- After the superheros have all been drawn, if you wish, you can have a superhero battle-off in single-elimination style, with the winner of each round decided by applause, raised hands, or any other method you decide.
Examples of superpowers include:
- She can fly.
- She can become invisible.
- She has x-ray vision.
- She can speak any language.
- She can read minds.
- She is very strong.
- She can shoot fire from her hands.
- She can freeze anything with touch.
- She can breathe under water.
- She can walk through walls.
- She can change shape.
- She can change the weather.
- She can see the future.
- She can hear very well.
- She can heal very quickly.
- She can move super fast.
- She can stop time (for 5 seconds).
- ...
Tips
- Demonstrate how negotiations over superpowers work. I recommend one person in the group acts as adjudicator for each negotiation, asking "Can she fly or go invisible?" Demonstrate this process with the JTE. After one superpower has been decided, the pen and paper are passed to the left and a new person becomes adjudicator.
- Also, to inspire students and help show them how they should present their superhero to the class, your should prepare you own drawing of a superhero. Present it to the class, pointing out each feature of the drawing that applies to her superpower. eg. While pointing to your superhero's cape, say "She can fly."
Warnings
- Students can get quite serious/ self-conscious about drawing. Give them a time limit and plenty of warnings to speed things along.
- This activity combines he/she, can, and uses both the question form (Can she ...?) and statement form (She can ...), so be sure to do it after students have studied all these grammar features.
Comments
This activity works well as a class activity after students have studied Sunshine 1 Program 8.