Game in Japanese


Swat the Fly

by Carissa

Target Grade: Elementary - Adult
Target English: Any Vocabulary, Directional Words


I played "matamoscas" all the time in my Spanish high school class and I am surprised when no one else has ever heard of it. It requires NO preparation and is an AMAZING game to review vocabulary. I played in in high school, I used in in college when we had to "teach the class" and I've used it in Elementary so really it is all ages.


You start by writing (or having the a few students write if you're really lazy) all your vocab words on the board. You can either write them all over OR I prefer to divide the board in half and write them each on both halves.

1. The class is divided in half.

2. Each team comes up with a team name (in English of course) if that will take too long name them yourself Angels and Devils, Hamburgers and Hotdogs but giving them a name helps them feel more like a team.

3. Each team sends up one representative take the fly swatter from the teacher (using this game as a time filler and didn't bring a fly swatter roll up a piece of paper and use that) and face their teams with their back to the board.

4. The teacher calls out a words definition or the translation (or that is related i.e. grass=green, smiling=happy, sun=hot etc)

5. The students turn around quickly and try to "swat" the word. First person to swat gets their team a point!

6. If they cannot find it their team can help them by shouting (in English) up, down, left, right (telling them where to swat)

6b. If the student swats the wrong word they have to wait for the other team to swat before they can swat again. So fast is important but being right is better.

7. Students hand the fly swatter to the next student.

7b. EVERYONE must swat at some point before a student is allowed to go twice.

This works nicely as a review and is LOTS of fun I HIGHLY recommend it.

Gracias Sr. Naranjo!!!


by Carissa



Sign up to get my top tips, games & hints via email!


Copyright (C) 1999/2023 by Richard Graham www.GenkiEnglish.com
Main Menu -|- Buy the Set -|- Contact Me