Background
Vocab relay is a word relay game. For this game, you can adapt the vocabulary to the lesson. The words can be the one to be used in the lesson in order to maximize benefits. To elicit competition, words may be very easy at first and not so many so students will feel eagerness and will have the fighting spirit that each of them can join the game.
Uses
You can use this game to teach Science on lessons like animals, pets, fruits and other topics. In English, you can use it as an introduction to nouns, singular nouns or plural noun, verbs, adjectives, etc. You can use this game on every subject before the lesson proper, as a warmer and as an introduction to the vocabulary. As the teacher, you can always be innovative.
Variations: You can use other variations like phrase relay or sentence relay. If you are teaching grammar, you can use the syntax of the sentence you are teaching so that students can familiarize with it. You can also use this in Mathematics especially in facts memorization or even in mastering the multiplication table.
Procedure
- Group the students equally.
For example, small classes of 20 may form 2 groups of 10.
For bigger classes, you can group into 4 groups but each group will have selected representatives per round of the game. You can have 2 or 3 rounds depending on the number of students.
- Let each group fall in line from front to back between rows in the classroom.
- Tell students that as a team, they are going to relay group of words.
- The teacher will have to call the first student from each team altogether at once and show them the group of words.
- Then students will have to relay the words by whispering to next student.
- Then that student should do the same to the student next to him/ her until it reaches the last student.
- The last student should write the words on a sheet of paper as fast as he can then send it to the teacher. (Students may also write the words on the board. The only drawback of writing it on the board is that the students may copy from one another.)
- The first team to submit all the correct words wins the game. If students can’t get all the words, the first group to submit the most correct words wins the game.
animals/ singular noun: dog, cat, parrot, turtle, goldfish
animals/ plural noun: dogs, cats, parrots, turtles, goldfish
animals on the farm: goat, pig, horse, cow, sheep, duck, chicken
fruits: apple, orange, pear, watermelon, pineapple, banana
verbs: run, walk, jump, eat, sing, sleep, shout, whisper
adjectives: beautiful, ugly, tall, short, smart, dull, coward, brave
Be creative and adaptive to your lessons so you can maximize the use of this game. You can add your own list of words in the comment section below for the benefit of other users. Happy teaching!