My first blog post + download!
Welcome to Learning with Megan. This blog was created as a space where I can share how I use my love of geeky/nerdy pursuits to both teach and study languages. I also plan to use this site to provide downloads of the worksheets, coloring pages, lesson plans, and games that I’ve made over the years. And with that in mind, let’s talk about the first game I’m putting up on the site: English Idioms Karuta. (I know, I know, I’m not great at naming things. Let me know below what you think this game should be called.)
About Karuta:
This game is loosely based on the Japanese game Karuta. In the original game, there are two decks of cards: reading cards and grabbing cards. All the grabbing cards are placed before the players evenly, while the reading cards are given to another person. That person will pick a card from their deck and read it. The others will race to grab the corresponding card. This repeats until all the cards are finished (or class time is up) and the person with the most cards is the winner.
There are so many variations of this game in Japan. I am not a Karuta expert, so if you are interested in learning more about this really fun game check out Tofugu’s article about it here. The version of the game I’m most familiar with is Hyakunin Isshu, which uses 100 traditional poems. My Japanese professor had us play it once when she wanted to show us more about Japanese culture, and it’s this version that inspired me the most.
My ESL version:
The game I created only uses grabbing cards. Instead of 100 Japanese poems or images, the teacher will have a list of 100 English phrases. After placing the cards in front of the students, the teacher will read a sentence from the list. Then the students will try to find that card and grab it first.
I like this game because it exposes students to various phrases that native English speakers use. I also enjoy pretending to choose sentences randomly. In actuality I’m trying to help the underdog. (Anything to make sure the ending score doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings too much.)
I recommend playing this game with older students (tweens and up) who have an intermediate understanding of English. It will challenge them to try and read more quickly, but it won’t really force them to use or learn any new vocabulary. It’s more of a fun way to spend those extra five minutes you sometimes find yourself with at the end of class. You can go over the actual phrases in a lesson before the game itself, or you can spread the 100 sentences out over several classes for them to dissect and digest over time. Either or, enjoy!
I hope you like the game and the blog. This is my first time, so feel free to email or comment if you have any questions or suggestions. I plan on updating once or twice a month for now. Hopefully keeping the schedule flexible will keep me from stressing out too much about it.