Categories Game

The recent heat we've been experiencing has taken a toll on some of my classes am afraid. One such a day was last week in 4S1. So we decided to have a go at a language game. The outcome was fruitful as students really showed a lot of enthusiasm and competitive spirit. Here's how it went:

Game: Categories Game (Tim Bowen)

Objectives: 1. Learning new vocabulary  

                  2. Revising old vocabulary learnt from previous lesson

Level: appropriate for all levels

Procedure:

1. Divide the whiteboard into six columns and write one category at the top of each column, for example: ‘sport’, ‘profession’, ‘item of clothing’, ‘country’, ‘food and drink’ and ‘animals’. (I added 'weather' as we just completed vocabulary lesson on this topic)
2. Divide the class into groups of four. Tell them that the first team to provide a word for each column beginning with a particular letter will win a point. 
3. Then give them the first letter, ‘s’ for example. This might produce ‘skiing’, ‘singer’, ‘shirt’, ‘Spain’, ‘soup’ and ‘seal’.  
4. When a team is satisfied that they have all six and that they are correct, they should shout ‘Stop!’. Continue with four or five other first letters.  
5.  Add up all the scores and see which group has the highest points!

This was roughly how I divided the columns on the whiteboard:

Group no.	LETTER	ANIMALS	FRUITS	COUNTRIES	WEATHER	FOOD AND DRINKS
Write down group number here to keep track of the score easily.	E.g. ‘S’
	R
	N

My reflections:

In future I will use more vocabulary from previous lessons because I realise it's effective to revise and recall  words using this game. Students' reactions? Wonderful. They worked in groups and had to compete with the other groups. The first few groups made the mistake of not calling 'STOP' when they got all the words (which was quite hilarious actually). But eventually they understood how it was played. Try it and share your experience. Leave a comment. Best!