Choral Translastion

Pair KARUTA/ Word Catcher

CROSSFIRE/ LINEFIRE

Full Class Testing or Listen-and-Respond Activity
materials: prepared sentences or questions, or make them up as you go
time: 3-10 minutes

CROSSFIRE or LINEFIRE are testing activities that need to be used judiciously. As a game, they can be quite fun for the students (especially those sitting and watching). Students intuitively understand the testing nature of the activities, however; many students just don’t like to be one of a few students standing while all the others are sitting and watching. For the teacher, though, it is very convenient for checking students' oral production accuracy: for example, after introducing or practicing some words, structures or gestures, and before moving into an activity that doesn’t allow for direct teacher error surveillance. We often play CROSSFIRE or LINEFIRE before moving onto more free-speaking activities (or the ConFluency Card Game).

HOW TO PLAY

CROSSFIRE: With the classroom set up with the desks in rows, choose one row -either front-to-back or side-to-side- to stand. After the teacher says a sentence or asks a question, the student with the first hand up can respond. If the response is correct, this student may sit down (if incorrect, the student remains standing, and the next fastest student may respond). This pattern continues until there is one original student standing. At this time, the line of students ninety-degrees opposed to the original line and containing the last standing student, stand and become the responders.

Continue play until the students sufficiently understand the correct patterns for responding to be able to continue to the next activity. After playing several rounds, you can ask the students who haven't stood up yet to stand for the final round.

LINEFIRE: Choose one row to stand (I usually roll a single die/dice to choose one row, counting from left to right). This row stands, and in order (front-to-back or back -to-front) each student in turns responds. If the response is correct, the student sits down; if not, the student remains standing, and the chance to respond moves to the next. When all students have resonded correctly and sat down, the student who answered incorrectly is given another chance.

CROSSFIRE/LINEFIRE PATTERNS for practicing a variety of Conversation Skill patterns:

• (Teacher -> Student)
• Question -> Answer
• Question -> A + 1 Answer
• Question -> Answer (+1) & Repeat the Same Question
• Question -> Answer (+1) & Ask Another Question
• (Teacher 1) Question -> (Teacher 2) Answer (+1) -> (Student) Follow-Up Question
• Question -> Answer (+1) -> (Teacher) Pardon? -> (Student) Repeat
• Sentence -> Say the Same Sentence (Listen -> Repeat, or L & R. Great for introducing new patterns.)
• Sentence -> Say Another Sentence
• Sentence -> Say Another Sentence -> (Teacher) Pardon? -> (Student) Repeat

Janken Conversation Rounds

*This activity was chosen by a group of elementary teachers as the main activity for their English classes. It is the best way to teach and practice Conversation Skills. It can be used for meaning- or pattern-focus, and for all of the language structures. Learn how to use it well!

Materials: target sentence or question

Time: 1-5 minutes

Ready-
Students sit at desks in paired rows, facing forward.
Write or post the Rotation Pattern on the blackboard (click for print 1, print 2).

WRITE A SENTENCE & RESPONSE or QUESTION & ANSWER pattern on the blackboard as an example. UNDERLINE or WRITE IN A DIFFERENT COLOR the part of the sentence or question that the students are to change. Write this in order of W (winner) and L (loser), W and L representing the two students. If there is a choice of responses, number the choices (see below).
Next to the above, WRITE also the CONVERSATION PATTERN OR SKILL to be used on the blackboard (so students learn to recognize it on the ConFluency Card Game cards. See Conversation Skills for a list. Click here for a Practice Order List of the skills).
For example:

(W) I play tennis. (Say a Sentence) (L) I play soccer. (Say Another Sentence) or

(W) I play tennis. (Say a Sentence) (L1) I play tennis, too. (plus don’t) (L2) I don’t play tennis. (plus ,too.)

All students LISTEN AND REPEAT the target conversation from the blackboard or text poster. You might ask for volunteers to first say some optional phrases for the underlined/colored section.
All students are given time to think of a sentence or question in the given pattern.

Play-
Students, in seat pairs, play Janken (Rock-Paper-Scissors, or R-P-S). Usually, the winner (W) begins the conversation according to the posted pattern, and the pair continue until they finish the posted conversation pattern.
When the conversation pattern is finished, the student on the rotation side moves one seat forward or back (according to the posted Rotation Pattern). The new pair again plays Janken (R-P-S), and does the posted conversation, as before.
The activity continues until students return to their own seats.

Hints/Options-

For vocabulary (single words), students simply say the word in English or Japanese, and the other student translates.

For sentences, to make the activity communicative, use the conversation patterns (plus ,too.) and (plus don’t) as a two-choice response.

To TEST any of the language focus patterns, have students translate from English to Japanese, or from Japanese to English in their conversation pars.

Try to use the same colors or writing style every time you do the activity. This will help students easily recognize the patterns.
Try also to use the same words/phrases every time for students’ easy recognition. Using the same names as are on the ConFluency Cards will also promote easy success when students begin to play the card game.
Varying the rotating side, and front-to-back or back-to-front will help keep students’ interest.
Depending on time, there are a variety of rotation options: seats pairs can play one time together; seat pairs play first, then once more with the student in front/behind. Rows can be split in half, or played full length. When you have enough time to repeat the activity, in classes with six rows, the 2nd and 3rd rows, and the 4th and 5th rows, can change seats. In this way, all students get new seat partners.

Pair Slap

materials: target sentence or question-and-answer pattern

time: 2-10 minutes

group size: seat pairs

For SENTENCES & NEGATIVES
Ready-
-All students stand in seat pairs. One student is designated as student A, the other, student B.
-WRITE TWO SENTENCES on the blackboard. The two sentences should be similiar, for example, A-‘I like tennis.’ and B-‘I play tennis.’ or A-‘I like pink.’ and B-‘I like blue.’

Play- for listening accuracy
-A-students first repeat the A sentence after the teacher, then B-students repeat the B sentence.
-Paired students face each other, each holding one hand out as if shaking hands, BUT the 2 students’ hands are held 10-15 cm. apart.
-Teacher says, ‘READY!’ and reads one of the sentences aloud.
-If the A sentence is read aloud, the A-student tries to slap the other student’s hand (winning). The B-student, though, tries to pull his or her hand away before it is slapped (winning).

Play- for translation
-Teacher writes ONE sentence on the blackboard, in English or in Japanese.
-All students repeat.
-One of the pair (the A or B student) is told to slap if the translation is correct. The other student is told to slap if the translation is not correct. (on the blackboard- A-O B-X ).
-Teacher says, ‘READY!’ and reads the sentence aloud.
if points are awarded, correctly guessing students get one point for each correct guess.

Hints/Options-

• For classes that don’t interact well in a free-moving activity like this, have the students Janken Conversation Round style-- seat pairs playing janken, and one side rotating back one seat after their conversation is finished.

Student 1-on-1 with Teacher

Individual Student Translation

Asking an individual student to translate your spoken or written English word or structure into Japanese can be an effective way to test comprehension of meaning and to reinforce it for the entire class. It also follows the good teaching practice of not telling an answer, but rather challenging the students to elicit it.
Beware, though, that this is a test. The student's answer will be either correct or not. And all of the other students are watching and listening. This raises the answering student's affective filter and anxiety level.
To lessen the anxiety, I usually ask the whole class to first chorally give me the translation, giving everyone the challenge. Then after this, I ask for a volunteer, or choose one by rolling the dice, to tell me the correct translation. Asking for a volunteer or choosing a volunteer by dice, rather than choosing one yourself, lessens more the stress on the lone answering student.