This
is yet another idea which is NOT my own original invention.
I’m
not sure where it came from, but it’s very popular at our school, particularly
with Young Learner classes. In fact it’s
such an old standard that when I first started teaching at my current school,
the students were already very familiar with this game, and they taught it to
me.
This
game can probably be best classified as a time killer—it works good as a way to
give students a break, or reward at the end of class for their hard
studying. However, there is always the
possibility that their might be some incidental learning going on—particularly
when they are working in teams on this game, there is the possibility that they
can learn vocab from each other.
The
teacher lists about 5-7 categories on the board. I usually use: ANIMALS, COUNTRIES, JOBS,
FOODS, THINGS, et cetera. If I can do it
easily, I might also try to sneak in whatever grammar point we have been
working on during that class, for example: ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES, PAST TENSE
VERBs, et cetera.
The
students are given a letter, and they have to think of something for each
category starting with that number. For
example, with the letter A, they might have to think of
ANIMAL: alligator
COUNTRY: Australia
JOB: accountant
FOOD: apple
THING: air-conditioner
ADVERB: angrily
The
first team to come up with a complete set of words yells out: “Stop the Taxi!” They then read out their list. If they have a correct list, their team gets
one point. If they have an incorrect or
incomplete list, I usually subtract a point.
(I’ve learned that it’s usually necessary to subtract points for
incomplete or incorrect answers, otherwise some of my young learners will yell
out “Stop the Taxi” as soon as the letter is announced in order to steal the
opportunity from the other teams, and then they will try to think up stuff on
the fly afterwards.)
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