Lesson planning is not my forte, but every once and a while I come up with an activity that’s a little different. In my first year as an ALT, I decided to tackle the grammar points “have to,” “don’t have to,” and “will”in the 2nd Year New Horizon textbook for Junior High School with something different than what was given to me by my predecessor and what’s on Englipedia.
I usually break this lesson over the course of two days in two parts.
Part 1: Have To/Don’t Have To
For the “Have to/ Don’t Have To” part of the lesson I hand out two worksheets after the JTE explains the grammar point in Japanese. Lesson Game Have to and Lesson Game Don’t Have To are usually printed on the front and back of one page. It’s a racing game that’s done with a partner and it will take about 15-20 minutes of class time.
Rules of the Game:
1) Students play janken (rock, paper, scissors) to see who goes first.
2) The winner gets to ask, “What do you have to do?”
3) The loser answers one of the options on the worksheets, such as, “I have to study.” The winner circles the answer.
4) Students janken again to see who can ask the question next.
5) Winner once again gets to ask the question and circle the answer. The first one to the WIN box is the winner.
Usually, I wait for everyone to get done with the “Have To” part before moving on to the “Don’t Have To” side of the worksheet. For the “Don’t Have To” race I ask students to switch partners. Winners get stickers for winning or some other kind of small prize.
Part 2: Will
For the next part of the lesson, I decided to make it into a review game that incorporates all three grammar points instead of just “Will.” The Lesson Game Have to Don’t Have to and Will worksheet and You have to practice writing are put front to back just like the previous lesson. Since there are three different grammar points to race for, this lesson can take 20-30 minutes depending on the level of English ability.
The race is done in three rounds, each time students switching to a different partner. The rules are the same as “Have To/ Don’t Have To” racing game. For the last round I let students find a friend from anywhere in the classroom to race against instead of someone around them.
For the writing portion will take up about 10 minutes. Usually, the JTE wants students to say some of their sentences aloud. Basically, the second part takes up an entire class period to do.
And that’s a wrap for this lesson. Tell me what you think and if this was helpful in any way. I’m thinking about adding other lesson plans, but we’ll see. I was just rather proud of this one since I made it all on my own.
Happy Teaching!
Living the Dream 