Soldiers & Ninjas ESL Review Game in Video

Flossy asked for new Warm Up / Review Games. Theย Lines Quiz is always my favourite, but as Flossy said, after doing it every lesson for over a year it is a bit much!

So my number 2 review game is Soldiers & Ninjas!

1. Select 9 students to become the soldiers. They stand in rows to protect you, the king or queen!

2. The other kids, the ninjas, have to answer one soldier’s question from each line and then beat that soldier at โ€œRock, Paper, Scissorsโ€ before moving on to the next line. You can choose the questions from previous lessons e.g.ย What’s your name? Where do you live? or any thing really.

3. If they make it to the final soldier, i.e. they have answered all the questions and beaten one soldier from every line at โ€œRock, Paper, Scissorsโ€ they must answer a random English question from the king or queen!

4. If they can answer this question in English correctly and they beat the king or queen at โ€œrock, paper, scissorsโ€ they become the new king or queen!

5. Keep going and going! (Of course the deposed kings and queens want their thrones back so start back as ninjas answering and battling with the soldiers!)

It’s just one of the games in theย VIP members‘ย Top 50 Games eBook

Enjoy!

P.S. More videos coming this week!

Richard Graham

I'm on a mission to make education Genkiโ€”fun, exciting, and full of life! Genki English has now been researched by Harvard University and licensed by the British Council around the world. The results have been magical! Now I'm here to help you teach amazing lessons, with all the materials prepared for you, and to double your teaching income so you can sustainably help many more students in the future!

7 Responses to “Soldiers & Ninjas ESL Review Game in Video”

  1. Yumiko

    What a great reviewing game!
    All the students are speaking English all the time!
    I have never tried this game before because I thought it might be too complicated. But seeing this video, I found I was wrong. It is fun and kids will love it!
    Thank you for the video!

    Austrian Workshop is really great!

  2. Margit

    same as Yumiko,

    I read about this game before, but it sounded so complicated to me. Also I didn’t imagine it to be such a fast game, where everybody is included.

    Richard, I think these videos are great. Maybe the next step to 50 games book would be 50 games video.

    I’m going to play this at my “teachers visiting day”.

    Thank you!

  3. Julian

    This is one of my favourite games. I encourage you all to try it immediately!

    At first, like Yumiko, I was a bit daunted as it sounds rather complicated, but having tried it a year or so ago, I discovered it is really straightforward and really fun. The kids love it.

    It can take a while to explain the rules to the kids (and the HRT!) but once you’re up and running it’s great and they always remember how to play from then on so it is well worth doing several times during a school year.

    To be honest, though, although it is a good review game, it doesn’t really compare with the line game, which is much snappier and can be done in just a few minutes. Soldiers and Ninjas takes quite a lot longer.

    For brief and snappy review games, I find Criss Cross is good, so is Last Man Standing, The Snake Game and even a class version of Haitataki (done GenkiEnglish style of course!) though that can get a bit riotous.

  4. Flossy

    I tried the game and although it took a while it was really worthwhile. The children were all talking, which was great. Thanks Julian for your ideas for other games too!

  5. Sevy28

    Great idea. Thanks a lot, it’ll change from the line.

  6. Carol

    I too thought it seemed kind of complicated but seeing the video and how several students can go at once, it just made so much more sense!

    Thanks Julian for your other review game picks!

  7. Kobe Kid

    Good idea to put this out on video! Have been doing this for two years and it’s good practice+fun. I’ll repeat Julian’s take on the time element. This one does take time to set up and explain, but once it gets going it’s all English. And the next time you try it, you’ll find it easier to set up. I like to use this game after a long vacation break to review all you did before the break and to ease back into class.

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