Looking for flashcard games to do with your students is a
bit like looking for bodyweight exercises to do at home. Every article says
that the exercises are for home but then you get a list of equipment you need
to buy. There are thousands of games and activities you can do with your
students with just a minimum of equipment but what if you don’t have any? Maybe
you’re doing a demo and can’t drag around a suitcase of equipment or maybe you’re
new at your kindergarten and haven’t yet scavenged around for extra hula-hoops?
The following are five flashcard games you can do with your
students that are fun but still help the students develop their English speaking
skills. Each game has its basic form and a more competitive version to keep the
students’ excitement level up. This games are such that you can walk into the
classroom carrying no more than your flashcards with you.
Hot flashcard
This game is very simple and best used when first
introducing words. Give the first student in the row a flashcard. He/she has to
say it as fast as possible and pass it hot potato-like to the next student who
says it as fast as possible before passing it on. The flashcard makes the whole
circuit until the last student where you pick it up and start over with the next
flashcard. The students will have fun passing the card along as fast as they
can. If you’re teaching K2 or K3 then you can have the student say whatever
sentence structure you are working on before passing the flashcard to the next
student and if they say it wrong the card can’t move forward until they say it
right. You can pick different starting points for the circuit.
To spice up this game, you can introduce a time element.
Start by timing with your phone’s stopwatch, or just counting to yourself if
you don’t have a phone or watch, how long it takes for each card and write the
time on the board or announce it. If your class is in the usual horse- shoe shape,
you can time each row individually and compare times. You can also do boys vs
girls or any other variation you can think of.
Musical flashcards
Put the cards in a circle in the middle of the class space
and call up the same number of students. Either play music or count silently as
the students walk in a circle around the cards. When you stop the music or just
say stop, each student has to either say the word they are on or use it in the
sentence structure you’ve been practicing.
To make things more interesting, you can have one more
student then flashcards and reduce the number of cards each turn like the real
musical chairs but you’ll have to make sure the students don’t start running.
Sometimes the competitiveness keeps the students from focusing on the words but
it makes for a fun change every so often.
Round robin
Line up your cards in a vertical row along the middle of the
classroom. This game works best with four to six cards. Call up two students at
a time and assign one to each side. As you say a word, the students have to
move to that word on their side. Depending on the length of your class and number
of students, you can just do one word per pair or you can do a few in a row,
moving them up and down the row of flashcards. The students can either repeat
back the word to you or, for K-2 and K-3, use the word with the sentence
structure you’re working on.
You can add on one or two students in a line on either side
and have two “worms” moving up and down as you say the words.
A more competitive variation and where the name comes from,
is when you start with two students and pay attention to who gets to the words
first. The slower student sits down while the faster one stays in and goes up
against the next student. Each turn the slowest student sits down and the
faster one stays in.
The slap o’meter
Put a table down in the middle of the classroom and put four
to six flashcards on it. Call up four students at a time, though you can do up
to six depending on the table size. As you say the word, the students have to
slap their hand down on the correct word and say it back or use it in a
sentence structure. If they are just doing the word by itself, you should have time
to cycle through all the words for each group even if you’re only doing a 25 or
30-minute class. If they are making sentences, you might want to limit each
group to two or three words.
You can also call up two students at a time and do a round
robin competition, depending on the age and level of your students, but it’s difficult
to keep the rest of the students engaged as it’s hard for them to see what the
playing students are doing.
Students vs zombie
Pass out all the flashcards to the students. The more
flashcards you have the better, as more students can be involved so this is a
good game when reviewing the month’s lexis. Make sure all the students are
holding the flashcards so other students can see what they have. Call out the
word you are heading too and slowly head zombie-like in the direction. The
student with the card has to call out a word that another student is holding
which sends the “zombie” towards the new word. Once the students have the hang
of it, you can have a student play the zombie, though you will probably have to
point out where the new word that gets called out is to keep the game moving
along. You can also have the students saying sentences using someone else’s
word for K-2 and K-3. If you have thirty students and only six flashcards, you
can have each student with a word pass it to the student next to them when each
new round starts so that they all eventually get a turn.
Variations include substituting different types of monsters
in for the zombie, i.e. robot, crocodile, Godzilla. You can start moving faster
and faster after each word is said but let the students win by having the
zombie collapse if they can keep it moving fast enough for a while.
I hope you find these games useful. There’s lots of
variations that you can come up with. If you have a longer class you can do a
few of the games in a row with minimal setup, often having whichever students
are holding the flashcards at the end of the first activity set up the cards
for the second activity.
Let me know if you try these and how they work for you, as
well as if you have any flashcard games you like to play.
