Kokon Tozai
Minefields

Level Aims Grammar Time Materials
senior high school To 'brainstorm' vocabulary review. none ( 10 mins none

This is a good warm-up activity for English clubs and conversation classes, but doing it with an entire class could prove a little awkward. First think of a category (animals, colours, names, nouns, verbs, etc.), then clap your hands four times while saying "kokontoezai" (Your JTE should remember this game and can show you the proper way to clap. If not, the P.E. teachers will definitely know.), and then say the category. The person to the left (i.e., clockwise) gives the name of something which fits the category. E.g., player #1 begins with, "Animal"; player #2 responds, "Lion"; player #3 says, "Dog"; player #4 hazards, "Cat"; player #5 confides, "Mouse"; player #6 stammers, "T-t-t-tiger"; player #7 asserts, "Bear"; player #8 gasps, "Ehh?! Ore?!?". At this point all players respond with, "Penalty", which may be nominated by any of the group members if you wish. (This also makes for an interesting drinking game, but you probably had already thought of that, hadn't you?)

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