“What’s Missing” is name of our today’s easy flashcard game. There is no preparation needed for the game and it is very simple to understand the rules and play. Just teach the vocabulary using flashcards and begin the game by following the below instructions
It would be helpful if as a warm up just let the students close/open their eyes so they learn what close and open means.
First, place the flashcards down or stick them on the wall. Keep their order for the entire game. Now chant the words and encourage students to chant with you together. Now instruct them to close their eyes. Quickly eliminate the first flashcard. Too slow and the tempted kids would take a look at what you are doing. Now instruct ESL students to open their eyes . Ask “What’s missing?” make this question complicated for higher levels. In addition, encourage students to answer by “cow is missing” or something similar. Now put the flashcard back, chant one more time and do the game again
Remove two or more flashcards at the same time to make the ESL game more difficult. Instead of removing by the order of chant, try to take away random flashcards to test if they just memorize the order or the actual word itself.
All ages will have fun playing what’s missing. it just the matter of challenge for different ages. Young kids tend to be shy specially in Asian countries, more encouragement would give them enough confident to speak out and be more engaging. For older students bring more challenges to the game such as using more flashcards, less chanting and etc.
One good thing about the game is whole class is engaged in the game. Most of the time it is almost everyone is focusing to catch the missing words and specially for kids they always try to be the first one calling the missing word