Culture Relay Race and Challenge

Jennifer Gilbert

OBJECTIVES:

1. To teach students about (American) culture with a hands-on activity.

2. To practice listening comprehension and reading.

3. To motivate students to speak out, get involved in class.

PROCEDURE:

WARM UP : Relay Race

1. Start by gathering 2 teams of 5 students each (We did this with groups of 10 students at a time, see notes for how to expand it to include more students). Have them sit in 2 columns at their desks.

2. Next demonstrate a relay race where each of the 5 students will have a task to do before passing on the “baton” to the next student in line (we used mini American flags).

Our race consisted of :

(1) say a slang word 5 times fast (i.e. “wicked”)

(2) ALT flips a coin and student calls out “heads” or “tails” before it lands. When they call it correctly, they can pass the baton.

(3) make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cut it into 5 pieces (to share with teammates after the race)

(4) read a joke to the ALT, passing on the baton once s/he laughs (i.e. student : “Why did the chicken cross the roads?”, ALT: “Why?”, student: “To get to the other side!”, ALT:“Hahaha”)

(5) student plays Rock, Paper, Scissors in English until s/he wins against the ALT

3. Let the students choose which task they want to do, deciding by janken if necessary. Start the race, and be prepared to do your part at station 2, 4, and 5 (flip a coin, respond to a joke, play rock, paper, scissors). Both teachers will need to participate – one for each team.

MAIN ACTIVITY : Culture Challenge

1. Once the winner of the race has been declared, explain to the students that they will have to listen carefully while you read them prompts about various cities/states so they can answer questions during the activity, and on a quiz later. The first team to answer the question correctly gets a point. When necessary, show a photo of what you’re describing. (ie Green Bay Packer fans are called cheese-heads because they wear cheese-hats. Photo:cheese-hat) If a team answers incorrectly, the other team can steal the point by giving the correct answer. If no one gets it right, the question goes back into the “hat” (or whatever container you use to hold the slips of paper).

2. Start the activity by randomly selecting a slip of paper (you can let students do this, but they tend to hesitate and take up more time) and reading the prompt. Point to the place on the map, then read the question about the prompt you just read. Students can consult with their team before answering. If necessary, read the prompt again. Give a 1 minute time limit if students hesitate to answer. If no one answers, move to the next question, putting the unanswered one back in the hat.

WRAP UP : Quiz

1. Finally, we gave the students a multiple choice quiz with all the culture challenge questions plus 5 questions from the relay race. In order to answer the questions, students had to pay attention to the whole activity, even when the other team was answering.

NOTES:

• I made and used this activity with Aiko Harman (Izumi Tateyama SHS ALT).

• We used this activity at Izumi SHS English Winter Camp where we had a group of only 10 students at a time. However I think this could easily be adjusted to accommodate a bigger class (more steps for the relay race (ie more slang), students play the teacher’s role in the relay race (flip coins while another student calls it, etc), more teams for the culture challenge).

• The key is to keep the culture challenge moving quickly. Make questions level-appropriate. This lesson takes the full period. For the quiz, keep in mind that multiple-choice takes longer than T/F as students must read not only the question, but every answer.

• Teaching culture is not a new lesson idea, but this hands-on warm-up really got all the students involved and set the mood for them to actively participate in the main activity. Giving a quiz at the end was good motivation to keep everyone paying attention throughout the lesson, even if their team fell behind. (We had a prize for the team that did best on the quiz as well as the relay race.)

Worksheets and Handouts:

The handouts for the activities can be found here