ESL Madness

A great way to have your students practice the names of family members. Having the students introduce their own families helps them with a sense of ownership of the language.

Introduce the word “family”. The teacher then says to the class…

“My family is mother, father, sister, me!”. (However the teacher’s family is).

The students then can take turns raising their hands and translating one of the English words into Japanese, example, “okaasan”, etc… until the class has figured out what the teacher said! They can get a kick just out of having understood the teacher! If a JTE is present, repeat with the their family too, for more practice.

Formally teach the family names and have the class repeat. Then ask for volunteers to say their family – “My family is…” and the rest of the class can translate.

Then, play karuta or similar group game to help their memory of the vocabulary.