Games Archives - Japan Foundation, Sydney

Japan Quiz Grand Prix

Quizzes are great tools to engage students. Here are five PPT presentations on different themed quizzes, such as about Japan, Japanese expressions, Food, School and Sumo.

Interactive Activity Ideas for Online Teaching

Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Activity Kit

Sumo classroom games

Students learn about sumo rituals and play various sumo games in class.

Musical Statues: Train to become a Ninja!

Students disguise themselves as animals and learn animal names and their calls/cries in Japanese as part of a camouflage training drill. They then participate in a Ninja musical statue game.

Nihongo relay

Students compete in teams to read hiragana colour words and match them to the corresponding colour cards.

Nihongo Twister

Students play twister games to familiarise themselves with fruit names in Japanese.

Survey the Class

Students survey each other about their likes and dislikes, experience & abilities.

My Future Dreams: Giving Reasons

Students circulate around the classroom trying to find the person who has the other half of the sentence which matches their half. Each sentence is joined with the conjunction から.

Definitions Using a Relative Clause

Students practise making sentences with relative clauses. The categories are Animals, Subjects and Places. The students must match the word card with the description provided. Each description contains sentences with relative clauses.

Regional Specialities of Japan

Students complete an information gap task while they practise grammar involving how places seem/appear. The topic is major Japanese cities’ special attractions.

Kanji: Tasks

Students work on two tasks relating to kanji. In the first they look at how a stroke can be added to the kanji for “day” to form a new kanji. In the second, they form kanji compounds using cards.

Survey Quiz Show

Students participate in a game show (like the old show “Family Feud”) where they guess how people responded to a survey.

Inviting to do Activities Game

The class divides into 2 and students circulate practising inviting and accepting/declining invitations to activities. The winning side is decided by luck, depending on how many acceptances they receive.

Throw the Dice Game

Students practise their numbers in Japanese in this fun dice game. Groups work together to try and get up to the total number chosen by the teacher within their limit of throws.

Vocabulary Enrichment Game

Students play a game where they must think of a word within a certain category to get a point. Play continues around the group and the student with the most points is the winner.

Going Places Bingo

Students form groups and play a bingo game involving sentences which have time, transport and place words. Each group has one winner who has crossed out all the words on his/her cards first.

Hobbies Bingo Game

Students try to be the first one to get four names in a row (horizontally, vertically and diagonally) on their sheet.

Directions Around Town

In pairs, students try to be the first to work out the mystery sentence by following directions. Using their map they go to different locations which have been allocated an area of the classroom.

Name the Shops

Students play a barrier game where they have to identify all the shops in the row based on what each shop sells.

Find My Family

Students are given a card telling them who they are in a family. They move around the classroom trying to find the other members of their family by asking questions in Japanese. The aim is to be in the family that finds all its members first.

Food Flowchart Activity

Students work their way through a flowchart full of questions about their eating habits. At the end, they reach a piece of advice.

Mime and Guess

Students work in teams to decipher the meaning of the sentences they are given. Each team then acts out the sentence to the class who must guess what it is in Japanese.

Inviting Someone Out Game

The class divides into 2 and students circulate practising inviting and accepting/declining invitations to places. The winning side is decided by luck, depending on how many acceptances they receive.

Everyday Greetings Karuta

Students play karuta in groups of four to learn the expressions おはよう、こんにちは、こんばんは、ありがとう、ごめんなさい、おやすみなさい、じゃ、また、さようなら、いってきます、ただいま、いただきます、ごちそうさま.

BOARD GAME: Travel Around Japan

Students play a board game where they make their way around a map of Japan, practising inviting others to places by various means of transport.

Card Game Ideas

Students play the following games with picture/word cards: Vocabulary learning, Grab, Card Matching, Concentration, Guess the word, Definitions, Soccer, On the Buses, Human Board Game, What’s Missing, Reading activities

Using Flash Cards

Students can learn new vocabulary and play various games using the flashcards which cover many topics.

Guess the Souvenir Group Activity

Students ask a series of questions to try to work out which souvenir another student is holding. If they guess correctly they win the souvenir.

Inviting Over the Phone

Students practise inviting/accepting/refusing in a scenario with a partner then participate in a class game where students are chosen at random by their phone number to perform the dialogue.