Collect 'em

Collect 'em : This was the inspiration for the Yes No Game and the idea is the same.

• Students need to collect groups of 3 of the same card.
• This game can be played using the small cards from this site or any others
• You'll need a total of at least 6 cards per student

We'll pretend that we're working with 'sea animal' flashcards and that I'm a student:

• each student has 6 cards
• I need to get 2 sets of 3 cards (3x crab and 3x squid for example)
• I go around and ask other students 'Have you ever eaten (sea horse soup)?' Because I have this sea horse card that I want to get rid of.
• the other student answers and takes my 'sea horse' card
• that student then asks me the question inserting the vocab of the card she wants to get rid of
• we break apart and play continues

Once a student has her 2 sets of 3 she wins, or comes in first place! The game gets more interesting and difficult if you can increase the amount of cards per student. For example, you can have them try to collect 3 sets of 3, or 2 sets of 4. Most of my card sets are linked to target language and you can really get in a lot of practice using these type cards. However, you can just write up some words on paper and play the same way.

You can also force the students to tell the truth to some extent:

• make some cards with 'never' 'all the time' 'sometimes' written on them.
• student must look at what they want and ask questions that will elicit the response they are looking for.
• S1 wants a 'never' card so he goes up to someone and asks, 'How often do you go to my grandmother's house?'
• S2 must answer truthfully and hand over that card if he has it.
• If he doesn't have it he can hand over any card he has
• Then repeat S2 --> S1

This type is generally looser than the vocab cards and I let students ask any question they can think of to produce the response they want. That's a little easier with the 'yes no game' card sets.