WARM UP

Fizz Buzz
Fizz Buzz was originally a game used to teach native English speakers
division and factors, but it works just as well with older students who’ve
already acquired this knowledge in their native tongue. If your ESL learners
have already finished the fourth grade, this is a great game to play with
them. If you’ve got students younger than that, don’t worry! We’ve got a
variation for younger students as well.
This challenging game is bound to get any student motivated!
Use this as a warm-up game by having everyone in the class stand in a line
at the front of the classroom. This will also make it easier for students to
know who’s next, which is very important in Fizz Buzz!
At the beginning of the game, you decide which number represents “fizz”
and which represents “buzz.” 2, 3, or 5 are good ones to start with. Then the
students go around the room, each student saying a number in
sequence. Students who fall on the numbers assigned to “fizz” and “buzz”
need to say those words instead of the number in the sequence. Then, for
older students, the game will continue on and they’ll need to say “fizz” and
“buzz” for any number divisible by the original “fizz” and “buzz” numbers.
For example, imagine that you’ve decided to use “fizz” for 3 and “buzz” for
5. The game would sound like this:
1, 2, fizz, 4, buzz, fizz, 7, 8, fizz, buzz…
And so on.
Students who either forget to say “fizz” or “buzz” or who say the wrong
number (you can be the judge as to how pronunciation plays in, particularly
when first introducing this game) are out. They take their seat and watch the
rest of their peers continue the game. The last one standing is the winner!
This game forces ESL students to think quickly on their feet to remember the
numbers in sequence, but it’s more exciting and dynamic than simple
counting. All this makes it an exciting warm-up game. If it’s too challenging
for students to recall the sequence of numbers by memory alone, write out
the numbers on your classroom’s whiteboard or provide a printed hand-out
for them to read while playing.
When students are too young to be able to play this game with factors, you
can play a variant. In this easier version, students will have to recognize if
the number in question appears in the number at all. Using “fizz” for 3 and
“buzz” for 5 as before, we’d have a game looking like this:
1, 2, fizz, 4, buzz, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, fizz, 14, buzz…
For an even simpler game, stop at 10 and start the rotation again from
1. This will help reinforce numbers 1-10. From there, as your students learn
and improve you can expand the length of the numerical rotation to 20, 30
and so on