Quick Guide
- Keywords: Reading, game, sight words, vocabulary review
- Learner English level: Elementary to Intermediate
- Learner maturity: Elementary school and above
- Preparation time: 20 minutes
- Activity time: 15–30 minutes
- Materials: Vocabulary flashcards (at least 20 in total), student desks
Rock Paper Scissors Snake, known as Hebi Janken in Japanese, is a well-loved classroom game. The game involves two teams trying to cross a long, snaking “bridge” made with desks from opposite ends. A team wins when their representative successfully wins Rock Paper Scissors against the other teams’ members and makes it across the bridge. The easy-to-understand yet competitive nature of the game makes it perfect for motivating students to participate in class. By simply adding English flashcards, this becomes a great activity which compels students to read aloud on their own. Give it a try!
Preparation
Step 1: Prepare cards of words you want students to be familiar with. If you don’t have many cards, you can prepare two sets of the same cards to use in class.
Step 2: Put together desks to make a long line (see Appendix).
Step 3: Place on the desks two rows of cards. Each row should face opposite directions, so that you can read one of the two rows of cards when you’re standing on opposite sides of the desks.
Procedure
Step 1: Make two teams and have each team queue up on the opposite end and side of the line of desks.
Step 2: At the count of three, the first representative in each team has to point to and read the card in front of them. If they read it successfully, they can move on to read the next card in line (See Appendix Figure A). If they are unsure of how to read it, they can ask their teacher, or teammates for help.
Step 3: As the team representatives read and proceed, they eventually meet each other in the line. When they meet, they have to stop reading their cards, and play Rock Paper Scissors (See Appendix Figure B).
Step 4: The winner continues reading the cards, while the loser returns to the back of their team’s line. The next person in the loser’s line becomes the new representative and begins reading cards down the line of desks. When they meet, the team representatives play Rock Paper Scissors again and the game continues (See Appendix Figure C).
Step 5: Whoever successfully goes through all the cards and makes it to the other side of the line wins a point for their team.
Variations
For learning past tense, first play the game with past tense cards. After the students become familiar with past tense, change the cards to present tense and have students point and say the past tense of the cards as they go down the line.
As students have to read the flashcards in sequential order, this game can also be helpful for learning the order of days of week or months, cardinal numbers, or other words that usually come in a set order.
Conclusion
Reading and writing practice tends to be dry. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Given the nature of this activity, training students to recognize and read sight words can become a fun process. When learning is fun, we can put language acquisition back into the hands of our students!
Appendix
The appendix is available below:
