Activity

If I were X I would Y Card game

PG Cards Against Humanity style game to practice the phrase "If I were ~, I would ~". Students choose possible sentence endings and the funniest answer wins a point.

Explanation PowerPoint attached. Card content example [If I were (a bird)] [I would eat fried chicken.]
Students form groups of 4-5 people (6 is possible but limits the answer pool), and draw four white cards each.

The students then do rock paper scissors and the winner is the first judge (card czar).

The judge then takes a card from the deck sentence starters, and the other students choose one card from their hand that they think gives the most entertaining answer and say the sentence aloud.

The judge then chooses which answer they liked the best, and that student gets one point, and the sentence starter card to keep track of points. The students who answered then discard the card they just used and draw a new card to maintain a hand of four cards.

The person to the right of the judge then becomes the new judge, drawing another sentence starter card, and the others contributing answers.

The person with the most points wins.

I recommend printing the sentence starter and ending cards in different colours. There is a lot of cutting to make the decks, and printing on hard paper is better, but I printed the starter cards on normal coloured paper and it worked fine.

Some examples use could and should as well, but they can be edited in the word file. Pgs 1-2 are starter cards, 3-6 are ending cards.

PRINT TO PDF before printing or risk the font changing at the printer for reasons I don't understand.

Sorry for the long explanation, hope your kids enjoy this, it got mine laughing and practicing the grammar point.

UPDATE: At my JTE's request I made a new set of starter cards using various past tense verbs instead of were, like [If I had a car,] [I would ~]. I also made 18 more ending cards to keep things interesting. They are now alongside the other files.

Files:
Small files
  • Cards If I were.pdf (528 KB)
  • Cards for If I Xed I would Y Starter cards.pdf (996 KB)
  • If I ^F I would ^F Extra ending cards.pdf (424 KB)
  • Medium files (requires an account to download) -
  • Cards I would.pdf (1.11 MB)
  • GAME EXPLANATION powerpoint.pptx (2.03 MB)
  • Cards for If I were I would.docx (2.7 MB)
  • Cards for If I Xed I would.docx (3.57 MB)
  • If I ~ I would ~ Extra ending cards.docx (1.4 MB)
  • 90
    Submitted by AsakawaSune December 6, 2022 Estimated time: 20-30 min
    1. jasonX December 6, 2022

      Thank you, it's great!

    2. aimeeyuri4 December 9, 2022

      My students really enjoyed this game! My JTE and I saw that the same students were winning, so we decided to modify the rounds. You can have the student with the most wins and student with the least wins switch groups and start a new game! For example, group 1 winner goes to group 2, group 1 loser goes to group 6, etc. One groups humor might be different with another groups so this gives the losers a chance at getting a win or few!

    3. AsakawaSune December 9, 2022

      @Aimeeyuri4 Great idea! I'm glad your kids had fun!

    4. melamachi December 10, 2022

      Oh, just checked back on this activity and saw your updates! I was trying to make some edits on my download yesterday, partially to adjust to the sense of humor and interests of my students, and partially to appease a JTE that told me the yakuza, tattoo, and jail cards were probably best omitted. Glad to see some of the ideas I was thinking of are in your extras! Particularly the mohawk and sumo cards! I'm excited to try out the game with my kids!

    5. AsakawaSune December 11, 2022

      @Melamachi glad you like them! I'm definitely open to suggestions for more cards, coming up with ideas for them was the hardest part.

    6. Denpa January 25, 2023

      It should be wield and not wear a sword, no?

    7. AsakawaSune January 26, 2023

      @Denpa, I used wear because it's a more common verb that still fits, you can change it to wield though, if you'd like.

    8. melamachi February 16, 2023

      Since you said you were open to suggestions, here are some of my personal additions: If I were a rock star, If I were a wrestler, If I had no money, If I had a lot of homework, I would play with dolls, I would become a monk, I would cry, I would get married, I would run for president, I would dye my hair.

    9. melamachi December 14, 2023

      Coming back to this posting because I made a worksheet to complement this activity. It's nothing crazy, just a four question paper that asks the kids to write their favorite card combination, three original ideas for prompt cards, three original ideas for ending cards, and their favorite combination of original card ideas. It's a fun way to get the kids to practice writing (and drawing lol) as well as to get them to express themselves using English. There were a ton of really wild, original ideas in there, and some of the best ideas came from students that tend to fall behind in class. It also makes sure that they are understanding what the point of the game is, since last year, I had some students that would play cards without meaning, not even trying to understand what was going on. So, I recommend making a complementary worksheet!

    10. AsakawaSune December 15, 2023

      @Melamachi, that's awesome! I'm really curious what ideas they had haha

    11. melamachi May 27, 2024

      A lot of their jokes are definitely not meant to be additions, like the one student that wrote that he would play with poop if he were locked in the bathroom (poop jokes had some popularity). There were a lot of sentences about monkeys. One student wrote that if she were a boy, she would capture women's hearts (or something like that). Some kids wrote that if they had Doraemon, they would make him do their homework or they would use his gadgets, etc. I remember a couple boys laughing at the implications of their sentence "if I became a girl, I would take a bath." And at one point we had to curb the students from writing people's names, because the boys in particular were poking fun at each other and we were worried it would soon stop being good-natured banter between friends ("if I were so-and-so's glasses, I would hurt his eyes" "if I were tape, I would cover so-and-so's mouth.")

    12. AsakawaSune May 28, 2024

      Yikes! Though I suppose if I had Doraemon, I'd use him for my housework haha.

    13. cvanb October 23, 2024

      I made a bunch of extras and got loads of ideas from my students as well, so if you want a bigger starter deck this might be helpful: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Zrjxw8PxQ6XdatQq-hWXTyjLnSwO_Ks/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117852976866387205872&rtpof=true&sd=true

    14. jiggswalsh November 28, 2024

      This looks awesome. You said that it takes a lot of cutting out, but because the way you set it up it was super easy. I would like to thank you for that! Often printables aren't formatted the best when they are shared on ALTopedia and it bugs me. Often when you stack them in the cutting machine, they don't line up.

      Two notes though, I took out the "I would go to Russia" card and changed "I would wear a sword" to "I would use a sword" because I think it is a bit more natural and threatening. "If I cooked lunch for the school, I would use a sword!"

    15. thedinokid December 3, 2024

      Thank you for this! It was a quick printout and very easy to cut on the slicer. Many students loved the conditionals. I pretty much used your conditional phrases as prompts instead of playing the regular CoH game. It encouraged many students to use their imagination and explain as much as they can.

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