These are three activities students can do to help them learn 9 country names and their flags in English. The first activity is the Keyword game. Students will use 1 flag gameboard per pair. They will also need 1 eraser per pair. (The teacher and students will have already practiced the 9 country flags beforehand) The teacher will place a magnet on the "Keyword" or in this case, the key flag on the blackboard. Students will do the same by putting the eraser on the corresponding flag on their gameboard. The ALT can say something like, "Hands on your head," to prompt students to keep their hands away from the eraser and gameboard. The ALT will say the flag names at random, one at a time, and students will repeat (maintaining their hands on their head). Once the ALT says the 'Keyword,' students will race to grab the eraser first. To make things more difficult, you can say the flag names faster or with a faster rhythm. You can also make students clap along with you in between saying each name rather than having them keep their hands on their head. Students also find it more fun, if you make larger groups, that way, they're competing against more students. But overall, it's up to you on how you'd like to play and manage this game.
The second activity is a matching game with the flag card sets. Students will play in pairs and will turn over their cards face down. Students will mix their cards and play rock, scissors, paper, to decide who goes first. The students will then take turns flipping over two cards at a time to find a match. Once a student has found a match, they must say the correct flag name to keep the set. The student with the most sets of cards wins the game.
The third activity is more for review. Since all of the students are from Japan and we wanted students to keep practicing flag names, we created a, 'Hello' game with a flag/country checklist. The students will have one country/flag card (these are the same cards used for the matching game) that they will keep secret. They will also have one checklist per person. They will keep their flag hidden from other students and introduce themselves to as many friends as possible by saying their name and the country 'they are from' (the secret card they have). They will mark down/check on their paper how many friends they talked to from different countries. Then at the end off the class, they will share out the number of friends they talked to.
In this post, I have attached:
-The lesson Plan
-Large blackboard display cards
-Flag Gameboard
-Flag matching game cards
-Hello Game Flag checklist
I do not own any of the images used to make these materials. They took a while to put together, so hopefully they will save you time on preparing some of the activities. I do recommend that if you can, you laminate these materials so that they last longer. You may also need to print the gameboards on larger paper and will need to do some cutting for the matching cards.