Foreign Language Vocabulary Review Game for the Whole Class (Who Has What I Have?)

This is a fun activity to practice vocabulary that involves the entire class.  It is a great way to practice new vocabulary and the spelling of new words and it is an effective go-to activity to review previously learned vocabulary.  I call this game/activity “Who has what I have?”

Begin with a set of pictures that represent the vocabulary that you want to review.  Take a few minutes to review the pictures and vocabulary orally with the class before beginning the activity and keep the pictures visible (pictures on board, LCD, etc.).  The class should sit in a circle facing each other. Give each student a small white board and market.  You can also have students do this on paper, but I always find that they enjoy using the white boards and markers.  Instruct the students to choose a picture and write down the word without showing it to anyone else.  When everyone is done, count to three and have everyone reveal the word that they wrote.  They then look around at everyone else and see of there is a match.  They all get a point for each match that they have.  Repeat the activity, but instruct students not to repeat the word that they previously wrote.

It is important to tell students not to communicate with each other while writing.  They soon realize that it is more fun to see the matches at the reveal so they usually don’t have a problem with this.    I usually change the image/vocabulary category a few times so students review several themes during the game.  The winner (or winners) is the one with the most point when the time is up.

This is a fun and easy way to review vocabulary and spelling.  It is also a good idea to teach a few useful phrases to maintain the target language during the activity (“We match” “We get a point”, etc.)