Country Cards I

Name: Robert Name: George Name: Pierre

Age: 15 Age: 17

Lives in: Athens, Greece Lives in: Paris, France

Age: 12

Lives: Washington, USA

Name: Nicole Name: Joao Name: William

Age: 12 Age: 16

Lives in: Ottawa, Canada Lives in: London, Britain

Age: 13

Lives in: Brasilia, Brazil

 Country Cards Teacher’s notes

These cards can be used for pair work, conversation builders, introduction models or card
games to play concentration games, go fish, concentration games, Happy families or other
similar games. Our goal is to practice personal information. Students learn some
information about these countries as well.

Some suggestions:

1.Introducing oneself
Each student takes a card. He introduces himself assuming the character’s role.

E.g. My name’s Joao. I am twelve. I am Brazilian. I live in Brasilia. I speak Portuguese.

The language spoken in each country is not written in the card because I wanted my
students to remember it. Likewise, if your students already know the capital city or the
name of these countries, you can remove the written words and let the flags and maps
speak for themselves.

2. Pairwork
Students ask each other wh-questions:

A: What is your name?

B: My name’s Joao.

A: How old are you?

B: I’m thirteen.

A: Where are you from?

B: I’m from Brazil.

A: Oh, you’re Brazilian. And where do you live?

B: I live in Brasilia.

A: What language do you speak?

B: I’ speak Portuguese.
Information gap pairwork: You can also give all the students a printed page containing the
six cards in two versions: Student A gets the complete version of the first three cards
and only the pictures for the last three. Student B gets only the pictures for the first
three cards and complete versions of the last three. They ask each other questions to
find out the missing information.

3. Guessing game using yes/no questions:

Each student takes a card. (Good to use after everyone has introduced themselves to see
how much students remember.) Students take in turns to guess the speaker’s personal
information. They can only ask YES/NO questions.

A:Are you (age?)

B:Yes, I am/ No, I’m not.

Are you from (country?)

Do you live in (city?)

Do you speak(language?)

Students who get a “YES”… as an answer can try to guess the whole information and tell
the class:

His name’s Joao. (Joao agrees)

He’s 13.

He is from Brazil.

He lives in Brasilia.

He speaks Portuguese.

Joao interrupts the player when he says a sentence containing a wrong piece of
information (the teacher can also interrupt if the sentence is not grammatically correct).
it’s the next player‘s turn now. He/She has to ask a Yes/No question about that missing
information, the answer to which must be “YES” so that he can make a guess. If correct,
he is the next speaker.
4. Concentration game:

Make two copies of each card. Place all cards face down. The first player opens two cards
and makes sentences. Joao is from Brazil. He’s Brazilian. He speaks Portuguese. If the two
cards make a pair, he keeps them and plays again. If not, it’s the second player’s turn and
so on. When there are no cards left, students count how many pairs they’ve made. The
winner is the player with more cards at the end of the game. (I sometimes tell them at the
end that the winner is the one with fewer cards or no cards at all! Or that everyone is a
winner because they’ve all leanrt countries/nationalities/language.

5. Slap:

Students sit in a circle. (Mine love playing on the floor!) Spread the cards face up on the
floor. The teacher calls out a card: Joao is from Brazil. He’s Brazilian. He speaks
Portuguese. Students have to touch it. The first student to do so keeps the flashcard and
plays teacher’s role calling out the next card. the winner is the player who has more cards.

More suggestions?

Please share! Post them on the comments sections and, if possible, email me:
marcia@baenglishschool.com . I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for your interest in this
worksheet. ;)