Jousting tournament - good for review
This lesson is basically a knock out tournament between teams.
First, with the help of printed pictures (or if u can, a wee vid off you tube) I explained what jousting is with reference that the sport comes from knights just as sumo does from samurai. The students have a worksheet to fill in as they listen.
I then split the class into groups of 5 and assigned each a knight "counter" (I printed each about A5 size and stuck them onto card board, using sticky magnets to attach to the blackboard). I took four of the groups and my JTE the other four.(so A vs B, C vs D) 1 person from each group would come and compete. I would say a sentence in Japanese or ask a question about their last lesson. Students have to answer or translate into English. Best out of three and students have to rotate for each question. Flip between the battles, to maintain student participation. If you just ask all the questions for A vs B in one go(potentially 5 Qs) C and D will get bored. Anyways, it's knock out and so at the very end one of my teams would fight one of the JTE's.
Note: If you want to give a small prize, that's optional but not necessary. Also, try to spice things up if you can.. so I referred to people as sir/lady and got the kids to hold umbrellas how you would hold a lance etc.
Hope it works for ya
Mark Dawson
