HeadBands: What Am I?

Headbands reviewing is really just an elaborate way of playing “What Am I?”, but it’s a heap of fun and great speaking practice for students learning English.

Click Here 103 Heads or Back Review Cards Download

I often see people mentioning that the most fun game they often play in their ESL classrooms is “Who Am I?" This involves sticking the names of famous people on students back, whilst they mingle around the classroom asking questions to find out their identity…BUT (and notice it’s a big but), any ESL teacher based in China knows that for them… this definitely is not going to work. Chinese student’s (and that includes adult students), have hardly any idea about world-famous personalities. Michael Jackson, President Obama and a couple of soccer stars (at a stretch) are not going to suffice in a class of up to 60 students, however headband or back reviewing nouns most certainly does work and is highly successful and fun.

I have mentioned about the hedbanz game in a previous post about the commercial boxed board games to use in your classroom, It's super quality and fun for everyone. People have been reviewing like this forever with just an everyday sweat band, or head band (or clipping cards to students backs).  It's such a hit with classes, here's some more info, instructions on similar games and some downloads of review cards that you can use in similar ways. 

30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

Reviewing in this way really is fantastic for the ELL and ESL classrooms. It’s great to start the class with a whole lot of example questions that they will be able to practice. Am I big? Can you eat me? Am I in this room? Am I alive? Can I move? Am I red? ...you get the idea. It's entirely up to you as to if you make your students stick to yes/no questions or make life easier and allow them to ask broader questions like What color am I? I prefer to stick to yes/no.

THE RULES : The basic game involves one person putting on a head band and choosing a card. The card is placed into their head band, and then they must ask questions to the other students to find out “what they are” before the allocated time limit is up. Simple and easy! With small groups this method is fine, as is the method of up to 6 students all wearing a card in their head bands at the same time and taking turns to ask questions…but what do you do with big classes?
Click Here 103 Heads and Back Review Cards Download 
Headband Reviewing in a Big Class?

When teaching 30- 60 students, this method works well.

• Make 6 groups of students (so a class of 60, would be groups of 10 students)


• Give each group 1 head band and let them rock, paper scissors to see who will go first for each group


• Make sure you stand in a central place for students to make their way over to you


• One person from each group (not the headband wearer) comes to you to get a picture card and then takes it back to their group and without showing the head band wearer (guesser) what the picture is, places it into the student's head band.


• This student must now start asking his group questions to find out what he is.


• Once the student guesses the answer, they must pass the head band to a new student and bring their card back to you.


• They of course pick up a new card to take back and put into the new students head band, and so it goes on.

Potential Problems You May Encounter

• It can be the case that the students find the cards so funny that they get too excited and give away the answers. You must keep a close eye and try to stop this from happening.


• The students are not supposed to give the guesser hints and should ONLY answer his questions, make sure they know this.


• It’s impossible to remember which groups have had which cards. There are actually plenty of cards, but it does happen sometimes that the student finds a card that their team has already guessed. The good thing is… they can remember the cards they have used and only need to tell you that they need a different card.

Back Review Mingle
The other way that works well with review cards is the Back Review Mingle. You will need a way to secure the cards to students backs such as clips or reward stickers.
Students mingle around class asking other students questions (again in yes/no answer format) to help them guess what they are (indicated by the card on their back).
I allow only 1 question allowed to be asked to each student, encouraging them to keep moving. You could also bring in a rule that if that student asks you a question you can't ask them in return. This can slow things up and make the lesson last longer and keep the students moving and thinking.
30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

The Final Verdict

A few decks of different categorized cards for Head-Band or Back Reviewing, in my opinion, is an absolute must have in your lesson assault pack. They won’t tire of playing these game, and it easily adapts to a large class.

Boxed Games In The ESL Classroom

I sometimes like to add some classic games into the lesson mix, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing a few board or boxed games into your ESL class. Depending on which country you are teaching in, it could often be the case that the students may never have seen or heard of the game. For us what may seem like very basic and simple English, lets take for example - Twister- can be very challenging to English learners. Lets take a look at a few of my commercially bought boxed games that adapt perfectly for ESL learning.

Boxed Games

Twister

Right foot green, left hand blue etc, really gets the students thinking. Those playing the game have to coordinate what their brain hears, work it out in their mind and then move accordingly. Of course you also have one student who acts as the caller, spinning and calling the directions for the other students to hear. It really works very well and is a great change of scenery for the kids. Don't be fooled into thinking this is too easy for your students. I've had English teachers have trouble doing this game. Left from right can always be confusing, hand or foot and four colours...It can still make them think!

HedBanz  

When I purchased this game, I had no idea that it was going to be such a hit with my students. I thought it looked kind of fun and had good learning material, but it exceeded all my expectations. The basic idea is the kids wear a head band with a card on the front, they ask the students questions to try to guess what they are. Am I an animal? what colour am I? am I big? can I fly? and so on. There are many ways you can utilize playing this game. I've even found the most successful way is actually in a big class. Split the students into six groups (as there are six headbands). Each student takes a turn in wearing the headband and asking the rest of his group questions to find out what they are. When they have guessed they come and retrieve another card from me and go back and start with a new student. You have six Headbands games running at once in the one class, it works awesomely well. I've successfully played this in classes of 60 students.

Uno  

Of course the ever reliable Uno is a must for any class. incorporating colours, numbers and new phrases such as reverse, skip etc. It is cheap enough that you can buy a few packs , split your class into groups and enjoy the universal game of UNO! As far as boxed games go, it's small and light to carry...which is a big bonus if you're carrying teaching materials around to different countries.

Apples 2 Apples  

I'd never heard of this game until a fellow teacher left it to me with good wishes upon her departure. I've not quite thought of a way to incorporate it into big classes yet but in small classes it really is a lot of fun. A game of unusual comparisons, that really gets the students to think outside the square, which is often not easy to do. It takes a little explaining to the kids, but is really excellent to teach them some new vocabulary. I have the original edition which I have to filter through and take out any cards that are just too difficult for the students, so unless you are teaching advanced learners, purchasing the junior edition may be a better idea.

The trouble I have often had in the past is the weight of carrying boxed games back to the country I'm teaching in, so down below I've included a really handy Amazon widget with the above mentioned boxed games and more, all available for quick and easy purchase and delivery. The prices are much cheaper than the toy stores too.

Good luck with your games and make sure you have fun!

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