Word Grab

This activity was presented at the 2008 ALT Mid Year Conference by Joshua McGee & Keiko Ito. You can view their original lesson plan by clicking here.

Introduction

‘Word Grab’ is a game that was introduced in last year’s conference by Nick Peranich of Kazuno City. It is like ‘karuta’ in that students must listen to a story and grab words in order as they hear them.

Teaching Procedure:

1. Teachers ask students to make pairs with the person next to them and move their desks to face each other.
2. One teacher hands out word grab sets while the other teacher draws a diagram on the board.
3. ALT explains the procedure in English to the kids, for example: “I am going to read the story of Mother Teresa. You will listen to the story. When you hear the words you will grab the paper. For example, number 1 is ‘city’, so I will read ‘blah blah blah blah blah CITY’ and grab!”
4. ALT asks if students understand, if not JTL can clarify in Japanese.
5. ALT/JTL begins to read the story and kids grab the words in order.
6. Read the passage all the way through and let the students listen and grab the words. Pausing for a long time before reading the last word is often a good way to end the game.
7. Ask students “How many words/cards do you have?” and ask the winner in each pair to put their hand up.
8. If you use a reward system in your class i.e. point cards, award points as you see fit (the looser should always receive at least one point for trying hard)

Notes:

• We have found that a short break between when the kids grab the word and when the teacher begins reading the story again helps the kids to enjoy the game and stay interested.
• Some sections have words or parts of words that sound similar, for example the sentence: “It was not easy because they had no pens and no notebooks.”
• We have often found that some students will grab the word early, if this happens, stop reading and tell them “まだまだ... please listen carefully!” then read the sentence again from the start.
• This activity can be used for any passage of text or even to review the ‘new words’ from a previous program/section of whichever textbook you are using.

See also

• MYC08 Chuo
• Mid-Year Conference 2008