Congo Bongo
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Use the board supplied or make your own. (Also see Board Games and the accompanying template). Students each need a marker. They play in lunch groups and compete against the other lunch groups. Students take turns, no dice or spinner is involved. First they must decide on the order of play (junban). The first student must say the "start" question - "My name is Takeshi". Or something resembling that. Then the next student goes, then the next, until we are back to Takeshi. He can move his marker on to the first island. You'll notice there is a "bikkuri" (surprise) mark. That means they have to take a card. I call them "Danger Cards", because for some reason just the word danger sparks all kinds of excitement. So, on the Danger Card is written something that the student has to do. It can be anything. I supply some examples later on. So once Takeshi has done his dangerous task, the next student gets a card and the game goes on in this way. The group proceeds to the end of the chain of boxes and islands to the Super Danger Card. The group performs the super card together. Needless to say, the Super Danger Card is something that is really hard to do, or just plain impossible. I made the game last winter and used it in the spring. When one group pulled the Super Card that said "bring a snowball", they were kind of upset. However, being ingenious, they went to the fridge, crushed up some ice and made a snowball. So anything can happen, and probably will.

You can give the winning team a prize if you want. The game is so exciting (usually) that when the team finally wins they don't even care if there is a prize. The game can get out of control very quickly. It's better this way. Students should be running around going crazy doing their crazy tasks. One way to ensure organized mayhem is not to let the kids get new danger cards until they show you what they are supposed to do. For example, Takeshi's first task was to do ten push-ups. So he does them where you can count out of the corner of your eye while playing tic-tac-toe with Midori.

Remember that you can and should change this stuff to suit your style, and that of the kids and the school. This game can be played with any class; Just change the grammar and the questions.

Examples of Danger Cards:

• Win janken with ALT.
• win tac-tac-toe with ALT.
• shout [insert whatever here] from the balcony.
• draw kocho-sensei's face on the blackboard.
• walk like a monkey.
• bring a roll of toilet paper. (It's better to say a roll because they usually bring a new one.)
• make a paper airplane.
• make an origami crane. (Most students can do this.)
• trade shoes with ALT, or just "Gimme your shoes" - you can choose when or if to return them. I like to make them wait a while, they usually trade cards to get the "trade" back.
• stand on your chair and be a monkey.
• wear your jacket backwards.
• wear a girl's skirt. (You should not make someone take their skirt off to do this.)
• wear a boy's jacket.

Super Danger Cards

• get kocho-sensei's hanko.
• get a snowball.
• get a branch from a tree.
• win armwrestling against the ALT - after a few tries you can just let them win.
• bring a manju from the teacher's room.
• get a kiss from X-sensei. (When I do this I let the teacher know beforehand that this may happen. They usually kiss a piece of paper.)

The worksheet (17 kB)

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