Fruit Basket
Resource Information
If ESL was Jazz, then 'Fruit Basket' would be a Jazz standard.
Great for practicing a set of nouns with young children.
Level Beginner
Age 5-12
Number of Players Whole class together (between 15 and 30 students)
Object To practice the language by chanting over and over again in a group in a fun way.
Language Skills memory, speaking, listening, communication
Resources 6-8 different kinds of cards within a defined class, ie. fruit cards of 8 varieties of fruit.
1 card for each student.
A chair for each student arranged in a big circle.
Time 10-15 minutes
Advantages Kids go crazy playing this game. Lot's of fun.
Great 'Listen and Repeat' technique to practice over and over a group of nouns and a question.
Disadvantages It can be a bit dangerous as students race to sit on chairs. You need to lay out a few safety rules before the game begins.
How to play...
  • I will use fruit as the target language to explain the lesson.
  • Spend about 5 minutes teaching the target language and checking understanding before the game starts.
  • Students sit on their chairs in a big circle facing inwards.
  • All students then receive one fruit card each. Make sure that students sitting next to each other don't have identical cards.
  • One student stands in the middle of the circle and the teacher removes this students chair from the circle.
  • The students sitting down then chant together the target question, for example "What's this?". The person in the middle then chooses one fruit and replies, for example "It's a banana".
  • All students holding a banana card then change seats with each other and the student in the middle tries to get an empty seat.
  • As there is one less seat than the number of students, one student is left standing and so becomes the person in the middle.
  • So the game continues

I wonder why a fruit cake is crazy.