You may dream of finding new and interesting flashcard games every week to make your students more and more motivated. But the truth is that once we introduce a REALLY good game, children will continously ask us to repeat it. So, why not?
Below I’m presenting TOP 5 flashcards games that are often used by EFL teachers. Interesting fact is that studets hardly ever get bored with them. It’s because the games are simply good – fun, quick and motivating. They aren’t bad from the teacher’s perspective, either. They are challenging and if you use ambitious content, they teach a lot, with not such a big effort.
Do you know any evergreens that are worth introducing in YL classroom?
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> Another option for 'What’s missing?’ is 'Which cards changed places?’.
> You can also use real objects for this game – at the early stage best objects are so-called 'cognates’ (words that are similar /the same in your mother language) – in that case you can introduce quite a lot of objects at a time.
> Don’t forget the 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with…’ game – with young learners use sounds, not letters.
> I often let kids get flashcards (it’s sometimes 'dangerous’ for the condition of the cards though…) by asking: „Can I have the …, please?” – „Here you are.” – „Thank you.” Then they hide their cards and teacher /pupil tries to recall who has what: „Have you got a …?” or: „Sarah has got a …!”.
> Vocabulary revision – memory game: pairing cards of different categories in a typical way, or involving kids in 'categorising’ during the game (e.g. both, the plum and the pen begin with 'p’, or: both, the pencil and the table are wood); at the end, kids present what they 'won’: „I’ve got two animals, a cow and a horse”.
> Kids are given fly-flaps in turn (e.g. three flaps per group, six 'tasks’ per group) and, walking around the cards, have to be first to slap the word teacher /pupils in turn calls out (e.g. „Watch out! The fly is sitting /has sat on the…!”).
> „Can I cross the river, Mr Crocodile?” – kids are given flashcards at random (one or two) and can only cross the river if they have something the crocodile wants (e.g. „Yes, you can cross the river, if you have some pizza for me!”); the child puts his/her card into the crocodile’s mouth (I have a puppet crocodile) and quickly run across the river.
> Kids are given one card each at random, they mustn’t show the card to anyone, they have to mime what they have – others try to guess what the card is (perfect for learning action words, instruments, toys…).
Wow, thanks for so many great ideas! The memory game you mentioned reminded me of a variation that I play with kids that learn to read. Half of the flashcards are pictures, the other half – words, and they must find a pair – a word and a picture.