Foreign Language Activity: Capture the Flag

Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, EducationWorld is pleased to present this classroom activity idea from Activities, Games, and Assessment Strategies for the Foreign Language Classroom by Amy Buttner.The book provides over 100 activities and games to help you write fun lesson plans.

With the activity below, you can encourage foreign language speaking in your class by playing an ongoing game of "Capture the Flag."

Brief Explanation
Begin each week by giving each student a flag of a country where your target language is spoken and ask the student to keep it on their desk in plain sight. The goal is for students to keep their individual flags until the end of the week, because that indicates they have only spoken the target language during the specified times in class. Students can lose their flags if they speak in English during a target language–only time frame. Indicate that it is a target language–only time period by posting a picture of the selected flag. When English is acceptable, show the United States flag. Any student hearing a classmate speaking in English should say in the target language, "You spoke in English. Give me your flag!" Make it clear that not speaking at all during the course of the class period can cost them their flag if anyone catches them.

Additional Rules
To keep one’s flag, the student must speak in the target language to at least three people during the course of the class period. You may also want to qualify that saying, "Hi," or something very simple does not count. Students can recapture a lost flag by catching another student speaking in English during the target language-only time period. Students who acquire more than one flag are eligible for a prize, whatever you would like to offer at the end of each week. Students who acquire additional flags may not just give an extra flag to another student at the end of the week. Students may not attempt to steal another student’s flag by removing it from their desk or personal belongings. Students may never speak to you in English without first asking for permission, unless you have a picture of the flag of the United States showing on the board. If the students speak to you in English, they must turn their flags over to you and won’t have the chance to get it back until the following week.

Ways for Students to Get Their Flags Back
If you want to provide students with a chance to get their flags back in a way other than having to catch another student speaking English, offer them a chance to duel with another student who has two or more flags. During a time acceptable to the teacher, the student challenger says to the other student, "I challenge you to a flag duel!" Although it sounds a little corny, the students do like to challenge each other! The student who was challenged must accept and the two stand in front of the class. The challenger must have three questions prepared (and memorized) for the other student in the target language that would be considered fair game because they have been previously taught or are in the current lesson. The challenger can ask up to three questions. If the challenged student cannot answer all three, the challenged must surrender the extra flag and the duel is over. Only students with two or more flags can be challenged to duels. Any student can challenge another to a duel, but a losing challenger also loses a flag. The duels are great because they are a way to keep kids on top of any essential questions you have given them and they challenge students to form more complex questions to stump their opponent.

Tips for Making the Flags
Print the flags on cardstock and laminate them if you would like to reuse them every week. Printing the flags in color is a benefit as well if you have access to a color printer. If you want to reinforce geography, label the country and its capital on the cardstock just above the flag. Make yourself a flag of the United States and one of a country that represents your language. Paste the flags back-to-back on a piece of construction paper and laminate. Indicate what language to speak by flipping the flag to the appropriate side.

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