Babo

Hello!
Another term is about to begin, so I've been thinking about ways to revise and get the students back into the swing of things. I've recently been to France for a French course for teachers, and by coincidence my old French teacher was there  for the same course. Obviously, this made me think about her classes, and why I enjoyed them so much. She used Ashurbanipal fairly regularly (I've written about Ashurbanipal here before) and I thought I'd give the game a new twist (new to me!), adapting it to other vocab rather than just sticking with numbers.

First, get everyone sitting in a circle then start a body drumming rhythm as follows - slap your legs twice, clap your hands twice, click your left fingers then your right fingers then back to the start. Don't go too fast!

The reason for the circle is so that it is clear who is next.  Here's a video of the basic number version.

For other vocabulary, give a topic (words beginning with M, sports, things that are small enough to fit in a pencil case, feminine nouns, part participles...). Start it yourself by saying "start" on the first click and give a word that fits the topic on the second click. Going around the circle, the students each in turn say the word given by the person just before them on the first click, then adding a new word on the second click. (That's why you want to make sure that the rhythm isn't too fast!)

 

so, it might go:

slap slap clap clap "start Mandarin" (first person)

slap slap clap clap  "Mandarin Man" 

slap slap clap clap "Man Magazine"

slap slap clap clap "Magazine Moon"

and so on. If you miss the rhythm, or say something that has already been said, you're out. It's basically a trickier version of "Think Fast" :)

I'm going to play the number version as a warm up first as I haven't played this version with my classes, but at the start of the term all revision & anything getting them speaking can't be a waste of time!

A bit of googling has shown me that this game is called "Babo" (fool) in Korea, but I'm sure there are other names around too.

What do you think? Any other variations? Would this work with your classes? Let me know!