The Sofa Game: How To Play Name Calling Fun

If you're looking to liven your class up a little, add some laughs and generally have a good time, the couch game is a good way to go. I know what it's like searching for activities that will actually work...In five years I have come across so many lesson plans and activities that you can easily see from the get go... are just not gonna stand up in class...or...You try, and you fry! I am determined to keep the contents that I put up on this site, as pure lesson winners. I'm not going to fill it with lessons that can only go half the distance. This next lesson certainly fills a 45 minute class period with mega fun...Your students will love you!

The Sofa Game also known as The Couch Game, ranks within my top 5 list. Whilst it's not as "English filled" as a lesson such as Wanna Buy A Duck, it makes the kids concentrate, listen and speak. It is also funny and will give them a good laugh.

General Idea - The main idea is to get the kids all sitting in a circle (boy, girl, boy girl) with four chairs at the head of the circle specially marked as the sofa.
Because the students are sitting in a boy, girl formation around the circle... "the sofa" will be occupied by two girls and two boys. The aim of the game is for the girls to totally occupy the sofa with four girls, and of course the aim of the game for the boys, is to occupy the sofa with four boys. Let's take a look how this will happen.

UPDATE : I have now designed a Sofa Game Activity Pack. Everything you need including more detailed instructions and tactical plans, name cards, Sofa Marker PDF and Seating Plan PDF.

The Sofa Game: Set Up and Play

1. Put all of your chairs in a large circle and get the students to sit around on the chairs in a boy, girl formation. The one chair immediately to the left of the sofa should be vacant...but every other chair should have a student sitting on it. To successfully play the couch game, you will probably need at least 20 students to make this game worthwhile.


2. Get the students to write their English names on paper. (Name Cards available in Activity Pack)


3. Collect names in container


4. Get each student to put their hand in like a lucky dip and draw out someones name.


5. BIG NOTE: Make sure that the students don't show or tell anyone what name they have...in China, this is very hard thing to stop the student's doing, but after a couple of rounds they start to realise that this game works better when they learn to keep quiet about their new persona.


6. Now the students have to pretend that they are the person whose name they have pulled out of the container. Play starts with the person sitting to the left of the empty chair, calling out a classmates name.


7. The student who is holding that name in their hand (on the paper) must stand up and walk to the empty chair. This often causes many laughs when a boy has inadvertently picked out a girls name... and a big, tall and beefy looking Mary, stands up and wanders across to sit in their new position.


8. Now the vacant chair is in another spot...yes? so the person sitting on the left of the new vacant chair calls another name and the new "whoever" moves over next to them.


9. The trick is for the students to try to remember who has who's name. The girls want four girls to move onto the sofa... even if one of the girls now has a boys name, and of course the same goes for the boys.

Obviously the team that wins will be the team that can fill the couch with either girls or boys. My classes love to do girl vs boy games! Competition is fierce.

The Couch Game Resources

• small strips of paper


• container to put all the names into


• something you can use to mark the four chairs that will be "the couch".

OR GO THE EASY WAY WITH THE SOFA GAME ACTIVITY PACK

The Couch Game Lesson Notes

• The hardest thing is not getting the students to cheat or give away their identity. You must stop the kids from calling out or mouthing their new names in their excitement and want to win.


• The next most difficult thing is of course the explanation.  As always, with activities like this one, I find it is best to get it all set up and for the first round, describe and show as you go. The student's catch on pretty quickly when they see how competitive and fun the activity is. When I first gathered enough courage to try this activity (I was scared about how to explain) I just couldn't get over how well and easily it all fell together.