Placement Activity: "Flyswatter"

Here is an activity from a volunteer who taught in a primary school in Tanzania.  In many countries around the world, subjects are learned by rote: pupils repeat after a teacher, and are not forced to think creatively or quickly.  This game a fun, new way to test the students' knowledge, and will quickly show who has grasped the lesson and who has not.

Activity/Idea name:

Flyswatter

Brief description of the placement where you work (please include ages, number of people, languages spoken, other etc):

I worked at a primary school in a fourth grade classroom. The kids ranged in age from 9-13 years old. On any given day I would have between 15-40 kids (I was working during a summer school session). The kids primarily spoke Swahili but a few were fairly well spoken in English. 

Goal of the activity:

This activity works on English comprehension and teamwork!

Required resources:

• A chalkboard, whiteboard, or big sheets of paper
• Two flyswatters (or they can just use their hands!)

Step-by-step process:

You start by writing between 30-50 words all over the chalkboard. You can either write the words in English or Swahili (or whatever language you are working with). Your board should look chaotic and with words everywhere! Something like this but with more words:

If you write your words in English, then you will have to have the translation for all of them in Swahili written down for you to look back at and vice versa. 

You then split the kids into two teams. One member of each team will come up to the front of the room by the chalkboard. You can give them each a flyswatter or they can use their hands. You then will read a word in Swahili, for example – "MBWA!" Both of the kids will then look for the same word in English (dog) and they will have to slap it with the flyswatter. Whoever slaps the word first gets a point! 

Do not erase the word. Keep all of the words on the board to keep the game challenging! The next two kids from the teams will come up to the board and the game continues. You can continue to play until you run out of words or until you reach a certain number of points. The team with the most points wins!

Do you have any suggestions/improvements for the next time?

The kids really got into this game so the biggest challenge is having everyone stay in their seats and not be constantly shouting out the answers. Also make sure you split up the teams yourself and don’t allow them to separate into their own groups. This makes the students interact with everyone in the classroom and not just their immediate group of friends. 

Also switch up writing in English and Swahili; this way it tests their comprehension in both ways!

In a country like Tanzania, resources are limited. Many of the students won’t have their own notebook or even pen/pencil. I tried to get creative in lesson plans that didn’t involve them having to use their limited supplies, and instead involved them coming up to the chalkboard!