Find your partner is one of the most basic games for English lessons around and so simple that you can adapt it to fit pretty much any lesson's target phrase/language or vocabulary set.
Basic Info
| Time: | 10 minutes |
|---|---|
| Level: | All ages and levels |
| Works with: | Vocabulary, dialogue, phrases. |
| Class size: | Medium to large |
You will need:
- You will need to prepare the cards that identify each student as one part of a pair. (See the tips below.)
Description
- Give each student a card.
- Students stand up, walk around and find a partner.
- Without showing their card and using the English of the day's lesson, they see if they are a match with their partner.
- For easy kindergarten or elementary dialogue - A:"Hello" B:"Hello" A:"Green?"/"I'm green" B:"Blue"/"I'm blue." A:"Bye"
- For advanced elementary or junior high dialogue - A:"Can you play soccer?" B:"Yes, I can! I can play soccer."
Tips
- When preparing the cards, you can put the whole phrase on the card - ie."Can you play soccer?" and "Yes, I can play soccer." or you can just put the key word - ie."Q:Soccer" and "A:Soccer" and the students can fill in the rest (depending on reading ability and the type of dialogue).
- For younger students, just a picture is best.
- For larger classes, it is sometimes hard to find enough examples, so you can double up and have two of the same set.
Variations
- If you don't have enough words in the vocab set, or just to make it easier, you can make it a "Find your group" game - similar to the snake game. Instead of just finding one partner and stopping, the students should continue to walk around and talk to other students or pairs of, and if they find others of the same group they join together. By the end, there should just be a few large groups.
Warnings
- Sometimes the students just show their cards to each other instead of speaking English. Make sure you explain and demonstrate at the start, only speak English - no Japanese and no showing the card. (Even get them to leave their card on their desk.)
- Often for a certain age range, the boys and girls don't mix so when a boy has the A part and a girl has the B part, it can take a bit time for them to find their partner. One solution is to make students speak alternatively to a boy, then a girl, and so on.