What is it?
junior high | high school | adult - lower beginner | adult - upper beginner | intermediate
Players
Time
Materials
- A large box with 8 compartments cut into it.
- 8 different materials to put into each 'compartment'
- Napkins
Description
Details
· Divide the class up into 4 or 5 groups.
· Using a large box, create 8 different sections in the box. In each section or compartment in the box, place an item (e.g. honey, natto, ice, water, wood, soap, fake fur, etc.)
· Label all of the compartments from 1 to 8 or however number of sections you make. Label them as Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, and so on…
· Each student in the group walks to the front of the class and puts his/her hand into one section of the box. They will go back to their group and describe it to the other members. This is done until all of the compartments are ‘touched’. It's important that the students cannot see the item they are touching.
· The students will write down the description for each compartment on their worksheets.
· After this is complete have each group guess what is in each compartment. The group with the most number of correct guesses is the winner.
· It may be a good idea to bring a roll of napkins into the class as well.
Additional
I did a similar activity at one of my junior highs. For third grade students or high school, they should make descriptions to teach Japanese culture to the native English speaker. Of course any topic is okay.
The students were given a list of words that I might know. Then they were divided into teams and given 5 unique words. No two teams had the same words. They had to make descriptions for each word.
For example, if the word was "tatami" then they could say, "Japanese people sleep on it. It's not hard. It's yellow" etc.
They have one minutes to get the teacher to guess as many words as possible. Good descriptions are easier to guess. They can pass if the teacher can't understand.
List of words
- tatami
- kimono
- yukata
- Mount Fuji
- Tokyo
- Osaka
- Kyoto
- udon
- kendo
- takoyaki
- fireworks
- miso soup
- shinkansen (bullet train)
- Okinawa
- baseball
This game makes the students realize that they can be understood. They were often surprised I could guess the answer easily just from one or two sentences.
Points could be awarded to each team that uses a good description word for a specific item. For example, if the item was fake fur then some words to describe it could be soft, fuzzy, furry, or smooth. 1 point for each good word, and 5 points for a unique good word. 20 points for the correct answer.