Tara Grove

Level Aims Grammar Time Materials
junior high school and above extra fun any entire period question cards, a basketball goal and ball.


1) Write about 20-30 questions on large notecards. I used this game at the end of the year, so I tried to include grammar points from all lessons. And I wrote "two-pointer" questions, the latter being slightly harder, to get some basketball vocab. into the game.

2) Before class, hang the goal on the blackboard with tape. I found a really cheap one (\1200) at the Disney store in Utsunomiya. It came with a nice, soft ball - perfect for an indoor game. Put a few pieces of tape on the floor in front of the goal so that the students know where to shoot from. In my classes, the tape closer to the goal was a two-point shot, and the tape further away was a three-point shot (but not very close to NCAA or NBA regulations).

Class Procedure:

  1. Divide the class into six teams.
  2. Each team, in turn, will choose either a two-point or a three-point question.
  3. The students must answer in a complete sentence (and I mean complete.)
    	eg. (for third years): 	Have you ever made a girl cry?
    	Good answer:		No, I have never made a girl cry. 
    	Incomplete answer: 	Yes, I have. (also a sign of a mean person).
  4. If the students can answer in a complete sentence, one member of the team comes to the front to take two shots.
  5. The teams get points both for getting the question right and for making the shots. The team with the most points, of course, wins.

This game was a great way to say goodbye to my third-years (in several third-year classes, I brought in stuffed animals to act as mascots for each team; that was quite amusing). In general, it is a good way to combine a lot of different grammar points, so I would recommend using it at the end of a term or school year. It is also a really fun way to end before a break.

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