For those of you looking for more ideas to use the various town cards here is someting I just came up with.

For those of you with out any of the Town cards you could just pass out some flash cards and thast should work just fine.

Basicallly What I will do is pass out the cards and have a certain number of students stand up. The more the better. (I think.)

You can do it as teams or individually. Basically it is a speaking activity for the students who are standing and a listening and memorization for those who are seated. I'm thnking now I will have everyone stand and do it as teams, maybe just two teams or maybe 3.

The students then talk about themselves. I'm planning on having them say at least 2 things (but for lower levels one should be fine.)

So let's say we have ten studnets standing at the front. Each student would state something like "I like ice cream." and "My favorite color is blue."Or if you go with terams then have everyone stand.

After all the students have finished the teacher asks one of the sitting studnets or the other team a question such as: Whose favorite color is red? Or who likes pizza? If the student or team is able to answer the question by guessing the correct student they get a point.

If anyone tries this please let me know it goes. I've done the standard waalk around and talk activities with my classes, and while it works sometimes it can be hard to monitor and the kids can get rowdy.

I'm hoping this will work well, because they are encouraged to listen, pay attention, and remeber who says what even when it is not their turn.

Yes, I like this idea

simple but effective

enjoyinglifeinseoul,
I really like this idea and try to play this way.
How many kids do you have in your class? how many are standing at once? I have 15-18 students (7-8 y.o.) & they are getting bored very quickly while others are speaking...

I will try that one in my class, good idea!

I also let my students make their own "town-card", about themselves and about a fantasy friend. And of course we also use them i the class.

I also got my daughter to assume the identity of her favourite movie character - Ariel from The Little Mermaid - then talk about her family, likes and dislikes, where does she live, etc. She got so excited I couldn't stop her - she kept asking about words and expressions she didn't know yet!

Hello,

I am a teacher of small groups, maximum 10 students. I am a teacher with ony 2 years teaching experience and I was wondering if card games can still be used with large groups of about 20 students. Is there a size limit for using card games ?

Thanks in advance for sharing

Dominique

Yes, I have played card games and group games with classes of up to 45 students. The game needs to be simple in structure or you can just explain it using only the essential parts to get the game started. As the students begin to understand the activity, then you can add in more of the rules and twists.

It takes more time to explain with large groups but it's not really a problem. I use large photocopies of the cards and explain with diagrams on the board and I may use one group as an example and have all the others huddle around and watch.

There's an ESL Teacher Talk show on explaining games that you might find interesting/helpful.
Explaining Games Using Only English

I don't know if there's really a limit on class size for card games, but you, the teacher, can only monitor so many groups in any given time. I've heard some teachers have 80+ students in their classes. I'd say there is a limit to how many groups you can actually assist and there's a limit on how many cards you can carry to class, but no limit to how many can play

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated

I prefer to use them in a 2 by 2 situation: guess who I am game.
kids talk much more and you can use them at different levels of knowledge: First only with the age, colr of eyes... Then you can add the hobbies, favorite colour...

This way, you can play with it the whole year, and it's always different. I like the idea of making your own cards with the kids too.

Good idea.

I'll try it next week !
Thanks for sharing

that is such a good idea! thank you for sharing

Very good game!!!!!
Thanks for sharing!!!

I'm going to try this. Good idea!

Thanks for the idea. It sounds really interesting. I like the idea of involving students in listening carefully to other students. I really believe that they can learn a lot from each other.

Some great ideas!

Thanks for sharing them with us, I will try them out next week....