The Polish Monkey King

One of my students’ favourite games is ‘Monkey King.’ It’s a game I learnt from listening to one of Silvia Tolisano’s podcasts last year. It’s a simple game where all of the students, except one, sit in a circle of chairs. The one student left is sent outside where she or he cannot hear anything that is happening in the classroom. Then one of the students is selected to be the Monkey King and the student outside is then called back in, not knowing who the Monkey King is. In order to find out who it is, they need to go around the circle asking a question. In Chinese I usually use ‘What is your name?’ Whoever has been asked this question then answers ‘My name is…’ The person who has been appointed as the Monkey King says ‘My name is the Monkey King!’ when it is his or her turn. This is the sign for all the students to swap chairs as quickly as possible and for the student in the middle to hopefully grab a chair to sit on. The kids love it and it’s a fantastic way to get usually very reluctant speakers to not worry about speaking a bit of Chinese. It’s usually my most reluctant students who are keenest to give it a go and ask to be it. I was rapt when that started happening!

Today I had the great pleasure of a visitor in my classroom. One of my colleagues is originally from Poland and his niece, from Poland, was visiting for the day. She came to see what Chinese class was like, but instead ended up teaching us some Polish, so we played Monkey King in Polish today which was fabulous! One of the best things about it was that it was a challenge for me to learn the Polish phrases and so the kids got to see me have to ask for the words again and again, and also I got to play the game from their point of view. This made me realise and remember how hard it can be for kids to produce phrases in a new language. How scary it can be to be saying something new like that in front of a class, but also how much easier a game like Monkey King can make it. I’ll have to come up with a few more games like it.

For more LOTE games check out the LOTE Games page and read Touchy Feely Language – Literally!

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Tags: games, monkey king

8 Random Things…and my favourite blogs and podcasts

I’ve been tagged (thanks to Chris Betcher)! So now I have to tell you 8 Random things about myself.

1. I used to work in a Bingo hall calling back the numbers.

2. I’m useless when it comes to eating hot and spicy food.

3. As part of my recent wedding vows I promised to try to be patient when my husband wants to buy expensive toys and try not to complain too much about how much time we spend at the footy club.

4. I taught kindergarten English in China.

5. I have recently had my tarot and palms read for the first time…interesting experience.

6. I have travelled to Kashgar, which is about as far as you can go in China before you get to Pakistan. That was great.

7. I’ve just started reading my first Patricia Cornwell novel.

8. I grew up in a suburb of Melbourne called ‘Research.’

Here are the rules for this game of ‘Tag’…

Post these rules before you give your facts (or after…)
List 8 random facts about yourself
At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

The rules say that I’m now supposed to tag 8 other bloggers, but I think I might just list a few people I’d like to tag and maybe when I get to know them better (and they get to know me!) then I’ll tag them…

Here are some of my favourite blogs and podcasts. I wish I could say I listen to all episodes and read all blog posts all the time – but I do need to sleep every now and again These blogs and podcasts are where I get my main inspirations from. Not only for ideas of things to write about (which I would like to be doing more of) but also for the inspiration to keep planning my own blogging project.