***To best understand how the game works, I recommend taking a quick look at the worksheet, then following along with the explanation PowerPoint in PRESENTER VIEW (right click + R)
This way you can see the instruction notes alongside the animations. I highly recommend using the explanation powerpoint during class, as the visuals allow you to give the explanation entirely in English. Show this to the JTE, too, so that you're on the same page, and the JTE can help you demonstrate at the beginning.***
Supplies
-Pokemon Cards (I recommend printing 3 sheets each of the “regular” Pokemon, and just one of the legendary). I laminated my cards, which made it easy to reuse them (and I did a lot!)
-Pokeball cards (I printed 3 copies so I had plenty of cards).
-Worksheets
-Dice
-Computer w/ powerpoint (to show the explanation presentation)
RULES
• Each group starts with three cards (two pokemon cards, one “pokeball card”), they turn them over and have to write a sentence comparing the two pokemon, and then a sentence using the word on the “pokeball card” (any topic).
• Once they finish, one student can take their worksheet + a pokemon they don’t want to the teacher (JTE OR ALT).
• If their sentences were okay, they can discard the pokemon and take two new pokemon and one new “pokeball card”
o So they have to make choices, and their deck grows little by little.
• OR their other option is to trade. If they roll the dice and get 4/5/6 they can force a trade with another team. (I didn’t get to try this bc of social distancing)
• If it’s too difficult for them to make a sentence with the “pokeball” word, they can trade it for a new word, but only three times. The worksheet has a place where the JTE/ALT can mark each time they traded.
IF THEY HAVEN’T WRITTEN EVERY SENTENCE, IT DOESN’T COUNT
CALCULATING SCORE
• Each Pokemon is one point.
• If they get 3 pokemon of the same type, they get 3 extra points.
• If they get a set of 6 pokemon (one of each type), they get 6 extra points.
Once any groups has a complete “team” (6 pokemon) they can continue to play the same way or try to take a “legendary” pokemon.
• They first must discard a pokemon. If they roll 4/5/6, they can “catch” a legendary pokemon to win 5 extra points. The legendary pokemon also have a “type,” which of course contributes to their overall score.
• If they fail, they can still take ONE normal pokemon card from the pile (not two).
• They should still take a pokeball card, no matter what
For comparing the Pokemon, they should use the following adjective with each stat
• Speed - Fast/Slow
• Strength - Strong
• Brains - Smart
• Charm - Cute/Cool
• Weight - Heavy/Light
• Size - Big/Small
The worksheet sometimes has directions:
• (est): Write a superlative sentence (best, strongest, most, etc.)
• of the (数): Write that something is the ~est of the (number). Ex: The cutest of the three.
• (動詞ing): Write using infinitives. Ex: Playing games is more interesting than studying.
Nice looking activity. You could also use these cards for a speaking activity warm up called Top Trumps. Students are each given 3-5 random cards. They make a pair, pull one unseen card from each others hand and do Jankan. The winner makes a sentence such as 'My pokemon is faster than yours' and then flip cards. The faster card wins and that student either scores a point or takes their opponents card. Maybe just use the unevolved cards.
ohhh that's a good one. Since I went to all the trouble of cutting and laminating the cards I'm all about finding more ways to use them, haha
It’s a British card game I believe. I do it for comparatives and it’s a huge hit with the students. And repurposing cards is always nice.
I tried this! it worked decently well. My class had difficulty understanding some of it, mostly trading, legendaries and scoring, so I simplified it for susequent classes just to have the two sentences and building a deck, and then asked "who has the most cards?" at the end. That worked really well and focusing them on the senteces made them much better. They just wanted cute ones anyway... My school isn't so great at English so it might be easier to grasp at other places. Fun activity though!
I did this activity with one my rowdiest and lowest level English classes at my technical high school. I had to simplify the worksheet to only be -er + than and not use the pokeballs but they had a blast. I have never seen them write so fast. They loved collecting the pokemon and hated how often they pulled achamo or hitokage! If I get the chance I might have them play again with the pokeballs. Thanks for making English fun for them!
I ran this with my students at the end of last school year and then ran a survey about the most fun lessons from the year. This one came up a bunch of times among my 250 students. Thanks for making it! I found the instructions powerpoint so clear and helpful too!!
I just wanted to comment again on this and how it is one of my favorite activites to run. I recently changed it so they could make sentences using singular and plural present and past tense BE verbs. Its great writing practice for lower level classes. For the lengendaries, I'll pick 6 or 8 cards (one being a legendary) and fan them out on the desk and have the student chose 2. The other 5-7 are Pokemon cards I notice the students are tired of getting like Hitokage or Nyasu (I'll even put the card they give back to me in the pile so sometimes they draw their own card again). It makes them SO mad it is hysterical.
I like using the game. It
s great. My students actually dont care what card they get because you can win with any card. Since I allow them to say the opposite. They can say my card is stronger than yours , my card is not stronger than yours , or my card is weaker than yours. Until they take everyones cards. It reminds me of my childhood card game called War. Simpler is better at my schools so I never used pokeballs or anything like that. I also try to do it in pairs , threes if i`m using est or most. And they all work together to write the sentence that won the battle. If they work together and write/discuss it allows them to play more and write more anyway.I'm a little confused on the instructions, are they supposed to fill out an entire worksheet for each comparison? Or is it one sentence per comparison?