Letter Blitz

Eric Butler

OBJECTIVES:

1. To improve students' letter recognition

2. To encourage students to think critically about English word and sentence structure

PROCEDURE:

1. A note on demeanour: When a game starts up, start acting as over-the-top as you can. I flail about with huge arm gestures, use extremely exaggerated facial expressions and voices, and make up random names (SUPER TRANSLATION BONUS ROUND! YAY!) Remember that you are a big celebrity and also very weird and unusual here. Play on that and you will have a great time and so will the kids.

2. Separate the class into groups. I usually just make every row a group as long as that gives them roughly equal numbers.

3. Get each group to think up a team name IN ENGLISH. After explaining that, go to the chalkboard and draw a vertical column for each group, taking up around half the board (they don't need to be very wide columns).

4. Starting from one side of the class, ask each group their name. If they can't think of a name or they suggest a name in Japanese, make one up for them (alternatively you can get the JTE to translate the japanese names but I think it encourages them to think up English names next time if you give them silly names). If you ever played the old skool computer game You Don't Know Jack, this is a great way to get the students going. Some names I have given groups that have gone over well include Hamburger Team, No Name Team, Team Salt, and Too Long Name Team. The more creative you are the better, and you will probably have to make up about 75% of the team names at first. Make the names amusing but also unglamorous, so that teams try to preserve their dignity by making up their own names.

5. Get your JTE to write the team name at the top of each column. Your JTE will be the scorekeeper and your backup, keeping an eye out to make sure you don't make mistakes.

6. Write the sentence! I generally have a series of sentences written down before I come in, but there are some good ones for on the fly starting up a round:

- I (hate/love) this weather!

- I don't like (hamburgers/pizza/rice/fish).

- How are you today? I am really tired./I am wonderful!/I am hungry.

Make sure the sentence uses some textbook grammar points and vocabulary, but don't make it too similar to anything in the text. Being funny is good.

7. Write a blank on the board for all but one letter of the sentence. For example, with "I hate this weather" I chose the 'w' to be already up. I wrote on the board,

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ w_ _ _ _ _ _!

8. Write a tally-mark tick at the bottom of the board. This is the Points Per Letter value, which will increase every time a student guesses a letter. From now on I will call it the PPL. [if you start the word puzzle with more than one letter in it, the PPL should be equal to the number of starting letters.]

9. Guessing letters: If any of the groups picked out a good name on their own, start with the group with the coolest name (that they picked themselves!)... for example, I gave Master Yoda Team first guess. Otherwise, either get the groups to pick a jan-ken representative and have it out or, more easily, just arbitrarily pick a group on one side of the room to start. Get the group to pick a letter. First say "Please give me a letter. Anything is okay!" and if they look too confused repeat it, give them a moment to mull it over. If this is their first time playing, ask the JTE to explain the request. Otherwise, start counting down from 5 slowly until they get crackin'.

10. If the students guess a right letter, they get the PPL score for every time that letter appears in the puzzle. For example with

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ w_ _ _ _ _ _!

the PPL is 1. If a group guesses "t", which appears 3 times in the sentence, they get 3x1PPL = 3 points.

_ _ _ t _ t _ _ _ w_ _ t_ _ _! Increase the PPL by one for every letter that has been added... the PPL should be equal to the number of letters on the board so far. So after "t" has been added to our example puzzle, the PPL goes up to 4.

11. Switch to the next group and repeat 9 and 10.

12.Guess the Sentence

Students can guess the sentence at any time during the game. if they do, they get ONLY the current PPL.... ie. if the board says:

_ _ _ t _ t _ _ _ w_ _ t_ _ _!

and the students correctly guess the sentence as "I hate this weather!" then 1) you either have psychic students or you are really bad at picking sentences, and 2) they get only 4 points because that is the current ppl.

Why is that good? Because they stop any other groups from getting points... and since the PPL goes up every round, the next group has a good chance of getting more points than you do.

13. Translation Round

I call this by different names. For the first years I call it Imi Bonus which has a better ring, and means "meaning bonus". For the second years I call it "Meaning Bonus" or "Translation Round". Either way, adding pointless adjectives makes it more fun, eg. "Super Meaning Bonus Round!" or "Double Point Translation Bonus!" etc.

Get one person to stand up from every group. Give them a 5-4-3-2-1 timer to stand up, and then jan-ken with the standing people (if a group doesn't get someone to stand, they don't get a chance at jan-ken). The winner's group gets a chance to translate the sentence on the board. They get 2 points for every letter in the puzzle... so the Imi Bonus for "I hate this weather!" is 32 points. Give them a while to think about it,but after a bit start a slow 5-4-3-2-1 counter, then give the other groups another chance to jan-ken and work out the meaning.

Translation round should be a big deal. If your students are not excited enough about it, make it triple points. This is actually the best part of the game because it requires them to think about the sentence... and as they get used to the game they will start trying to think about what you have written on the board so they are ready for the Translation Round at the end. That turns it into a game of sentence anticipation which is very good english practice.

If the students are having a tough time, see if there is a word they don't understand, and write or have the JTE write the japanese meaning under it. If it is a grammar problem, perhaps you have picked too hard of a sentence. Try to find a median between challenging the students and not being so hard that you lower their confidence in their language skills.

NOTES:

 If the group guesses wrong, obviously they don't get a point and you move to the next group. Once the guessing is going smoothly, speed up the timer... My routine is "OK! 15 points for Strawberry Group! Master Yoda Team, your turn! Please give me a letter! Five... Four... Three... Two.... One... BOOOP! OK! Rabbit Team..." et cetera. It makes things easier on you if you require the students to raise their hands before they guess a letter, so they don't just mumble it to themselves and hope you can hear them over the shouting of the class, which happens a lot.

 Make sure your JTE knows the sentence, and encourage them to correct you if you make a mistake (generally, if you miss a letter, but also if you forget to add the points to the PPL tally).

-I don't recommend letting your JTEs write sentences. They tend to write very predictable sentences from the text, and the students will guess it right away. Do get your JTEs to look at your sentences before posting them, to make sure you haven't included too many words and grammar forms that the students don't know yet.

 I recommend making the sentences longer and more complex each round. The point values will skyrocket. Picking sentences with too many repeated letters is bad, but a sentence with a couple hugely repeated letters (eg. 6 t's) can be fun, if the students guess T late in the puzzle and get 144 points. Then you can shout something like "Hextuple Point Jackpot!" while you tally up.