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Crossfire is a popular warm-up and practice activity in the Japanese classroom. Most Japanese English teachers I've worked with are familiar with it.
Here's how to do a simple crossfire game:
1. Ask all students to stand up.
2. Ask a question in English. (Examples: Do you like pizza?, Do you play basketball?)
3. Call a student who raised his hand.
4. If the student's answer is correct he can choose to save the students on the same column or row.
Once the student choose which students to save, the other students can sit down.
If the student's answer is wrong, call another student.
Crossfire is a great warm-up activity. It's short and simple. Once the students learned this, there's no need to explain the rules again.
For a more creative Crossfire game, you can do the following:
1. Have a theme
Every week, I have to prepare a set of crossfire questions. To make it more interesting my questions would have a theme. For example, sports. All my questions would be about sports. (i.e. What sport uses a pool?, What sport do men with very big bodies play?, What sport can you play? )
So far, the theme that elicited the most participation is "What Mc Donalds/ Mo's Burger food is this?" I asked the same question while holding up various pictures of Mc Donalds food.
I also ask questions covering topics from Science, Math and Social Studies. When the topic is specialized, I allow the students to say the answer in Japanese. If somebody can answer in English, he can save students twice.
2. Alternate the pattern of questions
Aside from having a theme, I would also vary the questions. Some students have a hard time with Wh- questions but they can do translation and answer Yes or No questions. For example in my sports theme, I also asked: Is basketball fun to play?, What is baseball in Japanese? These questions allow low-level students to participate in the game.
Every week, I have to prepare a set of crossfire questions. To make it more interesting my questions would have a theme. For example, sports. All my questions would be about sports. (i.e. What sport uses a pool?, What sport do men with very big bodies play?, What sport can you play? )
So far, the theme that elicited the most participation is "What Mc Donalds/ Mo's Burger food is this?" I asked the same question while holding up various pictures of Mc Donalds food.
I also ask questions covering topics from Science, Math and Social Studies. When the topic is specialized, I allow the students to say the answer in Japanese. If somebody can answer in English, he can save students twice.
2. Alternate the pattern of questions
Aside from having a theme, I would also vary the questions. Some students have a hard time with Wh- questions but they can do translation and answer Yes or No questions. For example in my sports theme, I also asked: Is basketball fun to play?, What is baseball in Japanese? These questions allow low-level students to participate in the game.
A few times, instead of asking questions, I would show pictures and ask them to say a word or sentence related to the picture. It saves me from thinking of questions. It also practices the students's English vocabulary.
3. Give more "saving" choices
The simplest way to "save" other students is by saying Line or Row (Tate and Yoko in Japanese, respectively). To add excitement to the game, I would sometimes give them the following options:
a. Just Me (only the person who answered)
b. Diagonal (naname in Japanese)
c. Around (the students surrounding the student who answered)
d. my friend/s ( a student's 1 or 2 friends who are not in the same line or row)
Once you get used to playing this, I'm sure you can come up with your own variations that your students will enjoy.
Happy teaching!
The simplest way to "save" other students is by saying Line or Row (Tate and Yoko in Japanese, respectively). To add excitement to the game, I would sometimes give them the following options:
a. Just Me (only the person who answered)
b. Diagonal (naname in Japanese)
c. Around (the students surrounding the student who answered)
d. my friend/s ( a student's 1 or 2 friends who are not in the same line or row)
Once you get used to playing this, I'm sure you can come up with your own variations that your students will enjoy.
Happy teaching!
