Japanese-Games

This is a variation of a popular game played in Japan on New Years Day. Because a lot of foreign language classrooms have students making flashcards for words, it is really easy to prepare
 * Karuta**

For example, my students made flashcards for greetings. Students can get into pairs, or groups up to four (it is a little difficult for students if the groups are bigger). The teacher calls out one of the greetings and the students compete to slap the correct flashcard first. It is usually pretty easy to tell because their hand will be on the bottom. The winner of that round gets to keep that card. If there is a tie, the students must //jan ken// (rock, paper, scissors) for the card. The teacher can show the appropriate flashcard to make sure that the students are right. As the number of cards on the table get smaller and smaller, the students get more into it because they try to anticipate which one you're going to say (especially the last two). At the end, the students have to count the number of cards they received in the target language to determine the winner.

This game is really easy to adjust because the teacher can either call out the English and the students slap the Japanese word, or vice versa. Additionally, this can be used for a lot of different topics like greetings, colors, numbers, characters, animals...etc.