competitive games for 2 or 3 people
 

I have an elective class of 3rd year junior high students (14 years old). There are 5 boys and 2 girls. The boys are very competitive, talkative (in Japanese) and try to take shortcuts on every assignment I give them.

I have found that games where the boys are competing against each other work well (and the girls work together with one of the boys whose English isn't sufficient to compete with the others). However, I don't want to continue using the same games.

Any ideas of competitive games that can be played between 2 or 3 people?

Gracias.

Re: competitive games for 2 or 3 people
 

How about sentence scrambles, where you write out a sentence on scraps of paper? The students then work in pairs to unscramble the sentences, race to the board, and write it correctly.

Or Chinese whispers as a warm-up. The last person has to tell you the sentence, and if wrong, check back along the chain to find the mistake.

Or any interview or bingo game, where students try to talk to everyone as quickly as possible, speak for as long as possible, make as few mistakes as possible.

These are only a few ideas off the top of my head. I like competition, but I also like putting together activities that require students to work together. I think for the weaker students, as well as the shy ones, this creates a positive, helpful atmosphere. Outside the classroom, they'll be less reluctant to speak, mistakes and all.

Take a look at MES English, too: http://www.mes-english.com/

Good luck!

Re: competitive games for 2 or 3 people
 

Thanks for the ideas. I use more activities where the students are working together rather than competing. I don't particularly like too much competition. However, there is a very strong heirarchy among the boys in this class and when I put them in pairs or small groups one person does ALL of the work.

Direct competition motivates the 2 students at the top of the heirarchy, so at least they do some work.

Re: competitive games for 2 or 3 people
 

Most of the usual classroom games can be adapted for 1 to 3 people. e.g. I have 64 one to one games adapted from my 101 English Language Games for Children.

I wrote an article on tips to liven up one to one games (including teaching 2 or 3 students) - maybe there will be something there that will help you.

How to teach a child to speak English.

These posts are all on private tutoring


All the best
Shelley Vernon