Who can…? Game

This is a cool game to play with CD9’s “I’m a superhero! I can …” or CD5’s “Can you play the ….?” theme.

1. Give each kid one of the mini cards (e.g. here or here)
2. Everyone remembers their card, then hides it!
3. You ask the kids how long it will take to do the game, and then time them!
4. “Ready, steady, go!”
5. Everyone runs round the classroom saying “Who can….” plus what is on their card e.g. “Who can swim?”
6. The idea is to meet up with someone else who has the same card!
7. When you find your partner you sit down together.
8. See how long it takes for everyone to be sat down!
9. Give the cards to different people.
10. Repeat from step 3.
11. If anyone shows their card before they have found their partner, they are out!

This is a great genki game as everyone is shouting out “Who can…?” at the top of their voices and you really have to listen for your word, which is a really important skill! It sort of ends up looking like the New York stock exchange!

Try it and see, it’s lots of fun!

Richard Graham

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10 Responses to “Who can…? Game”

  1. Margit

    Richard,

    this sounds really fun. You don’t happen to have a video of this???

    I would try it right away, but the class I’m doing this topic in two weeks is planned to be with parents observing, so I want to go on the safe side. So if there is something I could watch ahead, I could get an idea of how “genki” it might become, or what problems might occur.

  2. Yumiko

    I will try this game in two weeks too.

    Margit, I’m sorry, but I won’t give you any precaution to you.

    But… Why don’t you hand mini cards to parents too? If they join, they wouldn’t mind the kids’ noisiness??

  3. richard

    It is a very crazy (and quite short) game, so I’d only use it with parents if the kids are really good!

  4. Flossy

    Perfect timing! I am using this theme tomorrow in two classes for the first time and this will be wonderful!

  5. Flossy

    Works a treat. It is loud, but so worthwhile. I had groups of three sometimes too. I used it with classes that had already sung the song last year and they loved it. The new children really were not ready to use it today, but I will introduce it next week.

    We also used the Can you … ? question and the I can… answer for a class activity. We brainstormed all sorts of themes, musical instruments, sports, normal everyday activities and I wrote them on the board. The children then asked each other if they could do these things. It was a really useful speaking activity.

  6. gumby

    Margit,
    One thing I did for parent’s day was the YES game. I gave a couple of YES cards to the parents and 5 cards to each student. Among students they had to do RPS and the winner asks ‘Can you…?’ and if their partner said YES, they got one of their YES cards. I told them that they all had to ask at least one observing parent. At the end we counted cards to see who was the YES card champion.

  7. Margit

    Thank you all for these advices.
    Yes, I’m thinking now of either playing the “name card game” (having them writing their names of each card and cutting them out before we start)
    or to play the YES game. I tried it for the teacher’s workshop in Summer after you introduced it on the Forum, gumby. It was really good. I have to think which will be better and less complicated.

  8. Gudrun

    A huge THANK YOU again, Richard and all your team, for all the Halloween ideas and freebies!!! I will have a Halloween Party with all my courses (about 30 kids) and am sure it will be a huge success with the partents and the kids thanks to you guys!!!

    Now, one question/request: is there a mask of the Superhero? Several kids asked me about it, as they don’t want to be anything else but the Genki English Superhero! Would be a good idea, that mask, right? 🙂

    Thanks again and best wishes to all of you!
    Gudrun.

  9. Lilibeth

    Thanks for all the great ideas…hugs hugs

  10. nigel

    just a thought, but if i was to go and ask someone “who can ???” i wouldn’t be directly asking that person what he can do but rather if he knows what someone else can do. ie the person would say “i don’t know” or “i think so and so can ___” or “so and so can” in which case i would go to that other person and say “i’ve been told / i’ve heard that you can ___ /can you___?”

    Or maybe that would just be an extension of the game above

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