I Have It in My Name

By Issoofu Kanda Ibrahim—Niger
Age: All age
Times: 15-20 minutes
Materials: None.
Organization: Group work and whole class.
Aim: To practise/revise the alphabet and numbers. To practise listening for specific information, pronunciation of numbers and letters.
Description: This activity is a simple and fun way to revise the alphabet and numbers and is also quite cognitively challenging for children as they have to associate letters and numbers.
Preparation: No preparation is needed for this activity.
Procedures:
The teacher
Say a number and a letter, for example, ‘three, M’. Tell the children that if they have an ‘M’ as the third letter in their name, they should raise their hand. All the children who have M as the third letter in their name raise their hands and then take it in turns to spell out their name together with the numbers corresponding to the position of each letter.
For example:
Teacher: Three M Child: My name is Asma, one A, two S, three M, four A
Notes:
You might want to explain the activity in the children’s first language as the instructions are quite complicated!
Alternative

1. The children can take it in turns to choose the letter and the number.
2. The game can be made easier by calling out just a letter and asking the children whose name begins with that letter to spell their names, along with the numbers.For example: Teacher: OChild: My name is Oscar. One O, two S, three C, four A, five R.
3. Spelling games can be popular with children. A simple spelling game is to split the class into groups. Give Group A a word to spell. One child in the group starts to spell the word. If they get it right, award a point. If wrong, stop the child (perhaps with a buzzer sound) as soon as the wrong letter is given. The turn passes to Team B, who now knows where the mistake has been made. A child from Team B now tries to spell the word. If correct, award a point. If not, stop at the wrong letter in the same way and the turn moves to Team C. For example: Teacher: Team A: AustraliaTeam A: A–STeacher: BUZZ! Team BTeam B: A-U-S-T-R-E Teacher: BUZZ. Team CTeam C: A-U-S-T-R-A-L-I-A Teacher: Well done! Team C one point.

Reference
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners Download PDF