Running Competition

Today I started the class with an activity I had prepared according to what my coach had told me a couple of days before. She had told me to prepare a dynamic activity, a game to play in class related to families. So I prepared a game I named “Running Competition”.

They divided in two groups. I looked for an original technique to make the groups, and finally I decided to separate them according to the color of their knickers and underpants –they were surprised when I was telling them to divide according to that strange criterion-. Then they had to choose a name for the groups. One group was named “black and whites”, and the others were “the brothers”. The right part of the blackboard was for “the brothers”. “Black and whites” had the left one. I told them I needed a volunteer of each group. So when I had the volunteers in front of me, I told them a sentence, as for example: My grandma’s name is Caroline. They had to run to the blackboard and write the complete sentence as fast as they could and, of course, without any mistake.

They enjoyed the game a lot but I realized that sometimes they criticized what the others did, shouting at them that they couldn’t do that in that way, so I thought about letting one member of each group to help the volunteer. It was a good solution at first but, anyway, those who had a better level of English were constantly telling the others what to write. Despite everything I considered it as a positive thing, maybe to introduce them to help the others (they never do it!). I realized also that in some ways competition is a good resource to motivate them a lot.