"Enrichment activity" *cough* for big classes - "Soldiers and Ninjas"

[Brian]

Hi, 
I saw this posted on Dave's, though the activity originally comes from a Japanese EFL site (hence some Japanese terms).   It came recommended for larger classes.  I may try it out during my English club courses, because I'm not sure if my regular classes will be able to do it.   I also will probably change some of the terms . . . most of my students don't know what a soldier or a ninja is, and I'd rather not introduce violent terms into the classroom.  Anyway . . .

Soldiers and Ninjas

Select 4 volunteers. These students are the soldiers and will be asking the questions. Get the 4 soldiers to stand in a straight line across the room (about 10 feet apart). You are the King and sit in your throne about 10 feet behind the 4th soldier. Assign each of the 4 soldiers a question (eg. What's your name?/ How old are you?/ How are you?/ What sports do you play?).

The remaining students, the ninjas, gather at the starting line about 10 feet in front of of the first soldier. When you shout "Go!" the ninjas run towards the first soldier and form a queue (first come first served). The first soldier asks the first ninja to arrive their assigned question, in this case "What's your name?". The Ninja replies (My name is...) and they janken in English. If the ninja wins, he/she can go on to the second soldier who will then ask him/her their assigned question (How old are you?). The ninja replies and again jankens with the soldier. If they win they proceed to the third soldier and so on...

However, if at anytime a ninja loses at janken to a soldier they must return to the starting line and repeat the whole process again (cue cries of exasperation). If a ninja manages to get passed all 4 soldiers they get to have a showdown with the King! You can ask them any question that you've covered in class, eg. What's your favourite food? The ninja answers and you janken. If the ninja wins you have been dethroned and the ninja is now the King (cue much jubilation) and you must join the other ninjas in an attempt to get passed all the soldiers to reclaim your throne. If you win, of course the ninja must return to the starting line again (cue more cries of exasperation). 20 minutes or so is about right for this game although no doubt the students will want to continues playing.

The good things about this game is that it gives the opportunity for the students to revise/drill dialogue in a fun way without them even realising it. As it takes a very lucky ninja to get passed all four guards without losing at all, students will no doubt have to answer the same questions several times. Now and again let other students become soldiers so they get to practice asking the questions.

Variations? You can have two, three or more lines of soldiers asking questions for bigger classes. You can also use props such as a crown for the King which adds to the fun. If ninjas and soldiers aren't cool enough, you can always build the game around another theme (eg. Lord of the Rings with hobbits and orks).

A couple of things to watch out for. The queues for ninjas waiting to battle with the soldiers can get a bit congested at times. The students tend to wait patiently but this problem can be avoided altogether by having another line of soldiers. This will get things moving much quicker. Also, take the opportunity to walk around and check the students pronunciation and prompting when necessary. A bit of a long-winded explanation which would be aided greatly by some photos but this game works great! Try it!!!

Mat Gutch Kochi Prefecture, Japan.

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=81385

http://genkienglish.net/soldiersninjas.htm

[danifold]

I LOVE this game.

I teach middle school, 1st and 2nd years, ranging from beginner to advanced students with 30-35 students in a class. I actually used this lesson as a review for the previous two lessons to get them practicing the "key" phrases.

There are some changes and a PPT to help explain the game to the students.

Soldiers are arranged into three levels as such:

King
2 soldiers (level 3)
3 soldiers (level 2)
4 soldiers (level 1)
Ninjas

Here's a breakdown of the game:

-Four ninjas approach level 1
-LVL 1 soldiers ask a question, ninja's make the appropriate response
-Rock paper scissors FIGHT!

-Winners proceed to level 2
-LOSERS GO TO JAIL
   - I added this part as a method to control students from cheating and cutting in the ninja line (I'm looking at the boys). If ninjas go to jail, everyone eventually gets a chance at the gauntlet. "Overzealous" students are kept in check, and shy students are compelled to participate. EQUALIZED. It could help to ask your co-teacher to be the jail warden, since late in the game it gets kinda crowded in there.

This process repeats for both level 2 and 3.

N.B. Make sure that only 4 ninja's run through the gauntlet at a time. Once the 4 ninjas approach the soldiers, everyone else should just wait and watch. If there's a constant stream of ninjas running the gauntlet, hold-ups and bottle-necks occur, and you'll eventually find the king facing a line of 3 or 4 ninjas to fight in a row. So 4 ninjas start, and everyone watches until they're all eliminated. Once the gauntlet is clear, let the next 4 ninjas go.
   Students are generally interested in how their peers do, so you'll get fun situations where there's only 1 ninja left in the gauntlet, fighting past soldiers to the cheers of his friends and the jeers of the king.

-When a ninja passes level 3 to approach the king, pause the game to have everyone pay attention to the King Battle.
   -I also like changing the Rock Paper Scissors rule for the King Battle just to generate more interest. Such as win 2 out of 3... or the ever-popular Korean variation Mook Jji Bba. Oh, students love the Mook Jji Bba.

-When a ninja does eventually overthrow the king, reset the game, send everyone in jail back to the ninja line, and change the soldiers.
-If all the ninjas run the gauntlet and they ALL go to jail (which hardly happens), hand out candy to the soldiers and reset the game with new soldiers. King stays king, of course.

Ways to spice it up:
* Have a "throne" for the king. I have a comfy office chair in my classroom, and students get excited when they get to sit in the teacher's chair for once.
* Have some sort of crown and cape for the king.
* Make a chant the soldiers must shout whenever there's a King Battle, or a new king is crowned (I'm thinking 300 style "AWOO AWOO AWOO!")
* Bring in plastic spears and shuriken for the students to mess with (HAH, just joking. That's a terrible idea for middle school boys.)

This worked really well for my students. They're shy to try it at first, but once the game gets rolling, everybody's into it. Especially if you jazz it up a little with deep, sinister laughs and dramatic King Battles. Lots of Phoenix Wright style pointing and Darth Vader-esque "NOOOOOO"s when losing.

Good luck!

[RufusW]

This is a great way to take care of large classes.  Thanks.

Here's a powerpoint to explain the game, I hope it helps/gets them interested.

[Nukrain]

This is really a great game and especially for review.  I've done this game last year
and my co teacher said it's such a great activity.  The elementary kids really got into
it and the class got really rowdy (which is what I like).
I think it would work the same way for middle school students too.

[GreenFloyd]

This looks very fun. I'm curious a little about the mechanics of the game though. The students must go back to the FIRST line if they lose at rock paper scissors at ANY station? Wouldn't this mean that the first line will always be the longest, the second will be shorter, third will be shorter, and fourth will only occasionally have people come into this? How do you work out this balance so that the first line doesn't remain so congested? Maybe students have to only go back to the back of their line if they lose instead of going all the way back to the first line?

Also, how does teaching the rules of the game go? It seems like a difficult one to teach. I mean, here it required a page of explanation for the teachers, how much does it require for the students? Do you have co-teachers help a lot explaining the game?

Thanks! I'll probably do this one soon after I wrap my head around it a bit better.

[RufusW]

The first line is always the most congested, it has been suggested only 4 students try at once, otherwise simply try to control the lines.

The animated powerpoint above does a good job of explaining the game to students.

[teacherjenni]

Rufus made a ppt under the PPT Game Template Mega-Pack thread to show the instructions - it made it much easier for my class to understand. However, my classes are kinda small, so I took out a level. Now they only go through 2 levels to get to king. Here is my ppt for rules(all props to Rufus, I only took out one level in the explanation). On the second slide, just let it run through w/o clicking anything.

[meggie107]

I wish I understood this game a bit better...it sounds so cool.

Excuse my stupidity, but how do you find space for lines of people in your classes?  Cause I have about 36 students crammed into a small space...and if they have to keep moving, I would imagine it would be a problem...

[danifold]

I'm actually lucky enough to have a fairly large classroom, but crowd control is possible if your students are willing to listen. I'm planning on doing this game again soon, so I'll video tape it then... But here's the way I set it up.

-Push all the students to the back of the class. They don't have to make orderly lines, just make sure they're all back there and staying put.

-Select 9 of them to be the soldiers. Arrange these 9 in the middle of the class in a pyramid formation:
   * 4 students in a line to represent the front-line defense.
   * 3 students a few paces behind the front-line to represent the next level
   * 2 students as the final line of defense, standing to the right and left of the king
   * King (who is at the front of the class, in a chair, looking haughty)

-The rest of the students, who are still all clustered in the back of the class, are the ninjas. At this point, only call up 4 ninjas to stand in front of the 4 soldiers in the front-line. Everyone else should be quiet and watch.

-The 4 front-line soldiers ask a question (whatever fits your lesson for that day), and the 4 ninjas must respond accordingly.
   * If a ninja fails to respond correctly, he must go to the designated jail area (which is usually an empty corner of the room).
   * If a ninja responds correctly, then he and the soldier has a rock-paper-scissors battle. If unsuccessful --> jail
   * If a ninja responds and wins the r-p-s battle, he proceeds to level 2 (the 3 soldier line).

-Chances are, not all 4 ninjas succeeded. Here's where crowd control comes in:

***As the initial 4 ninjas proceed through the pyramid of soldiers, NOBODY else should enter the gauntlet. New ninjas may enter ONLY when all 4 of the previous ninjas have failed.

It may sound like a slow game that they'll get bored of, but it's only like that for the first couple of minutes of play. Once they get the hang of it, things move along faster. Just make sure only a max of 4 ninjas are running the gauntlet at a time.

Obviously, this'll require a lot of managing, and you'll certainly need help from your co-teachers. Some classes are just too hopelessly rowdy for a game like this... (I've had to abandon ship for a few). But for the most part, it's received well and everyone has fun, teacher included.

I hope this clears some things up... Like I said, I'll try to get a video of the next time I do this game.

[kdrama]

Looks fun. Can't wait to try with my students.

Quick question though, what happens to the ninjas in jail? Doesn't it get too rowdy in there cuz they have nothing else to do now but wait til I switch up the ninjas and the soldiers?

[danifold]

Everything resets once someone reaches and overthrows the king, or if all the ninjas end up in jail. You may need your co-teacher to play warden for them, 'cause they do tend to get rowdy... I tried the game without the jail, but then students just ended up cutting in line and running the gauntlet over and over again, leaving the less bold completely out of the game. If you can manage to make sure the students run the gauntlet in an orderly manner, then the jail is unnecessary.

Although, I once had the whole class in jail minus one lone ninja. She was really shy, and ended up challenging the soldiers all by herself. She amazingly made it past all three levels. When she (very shyly) overthrew the king, the whole class went wild. It took forever to calm them down again while they reset, but she seemed pretty happy with her victory.

[Theodosian]

Reasonably new here, so this may come across as foolish, but what is mook jji ba? This game looks fantastic and being that I'm teaching 2nd year high schoolers at a low-intermediate level and 1st year mid schoolers, I need something like this, but if there is something they like better than r-p-s which can likely be used for multiple lessons, etc, I'd be more the fool not for asking for it. Thanks.

[MLynTeacher]

This game sounds really great... I'm going to try to use it for my introduction class!

Thanks everyone!

[waygoof]

This game is a great idea! You gotta careful though. My class ended up just focusing on playing rock, paper, scissors and, at a certain point, kept trying to get by without asking/answering the questions.

[teachell]

Awesome, awesome game!  I use this with my kiddos, ranging from newcomers (beginners) to advanced! Always a blast and they look forward to it!

[rookiecookie]

I can't wait to try this! I needed a review lesson and I wanted to mix it up because I use powerpoint soooo much.
Thanks for posting this.