I picked up this memory-boosting game idea from a teacher's book for a
publication aimed at junior learners, but have found it useful with several
groups of learners, including adults.
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Format
While it makes sense to make the subject
matter relevant to your class or previous class, I would suggest keeping
the game fairly simple the first few times you play it.
'I can see a fish.' 'I can see a fish and a
car.' This is the basic format, and so it carries on until someone cannot
remember an item (they get 'stuck') and you can 'count them down' (from 5
[4,3,2,1], which the other kids soon enjoy). This person is then 'out' and
you continue until the winner is the last boy/man/girl/woman standing!
Since classrooms can be fairly bare, encourage
students to 'close their eyes and see' – otherwise, “use your imagination”.
Teacher can use this as a 'warmer' to try and regenerate vocab used in a
previous lesson, or use it after drilling an adult learner on a list of
vocab. For example, I used this with an adult learner on the subject of
fruit and vegetables recently and she really seemed to enjoy it. Simply
adjust the format to suit your needs, so in the case of the fruit and
vegetables, you can use, 'I like carrots.' 'I like carrots and
strawberries.” … and so on.
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Making Progress
Without putting too fine a point on it, when I first tried out this
game with a group of junior language learners in Thailand, I was actually quite
surprised how badly they performed! However, over a matter of weeks, we have
managed to go from five or six things to more than 10. I think the record now
stands at 13, although I sometimes allow a little leeway (the kids often give
each other fairly blatant clues!).
During a game in the car recently, a member of my own family managed to
remember 27 items – I think it is therefore reasonable to use the word
'awesome' in this sentence! (well done, son!) The last point hopefully stresses
another important aspect of this game – it is highly 'mobile' and if the kid (or
kids) like it, they are sure to introduce it to their other family members.
This can only be a good thing!
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