Japanese Level 5, Activity #14: “Spiderweb” / “蜘蛛の巣” (Face-to-Face)
Description:
Students will create a story together by each creating a sentence that follows the next.
Semantic Topics:
Story-telling, memorization, teamwork, speaking, listening comprehension, ストーリーテリング, 暗記, チームワーク, スピーキング, リスニング
NCSSFL-ACTFL World-Readiness Standards:
- Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversation, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.
- Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken Japanese on a variety of topics.
Idaho Content Standards for World Languages:
- COMM 1.1 – Interact and negotiate meaning (spoken, signed, written conversation) to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions
- COMM 2.1 – Understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed on a variety of topics.
NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements:
- I can start a story in Japanese.
- I can listen to and understand another person telling a story in Japanese.
- I can add my own contributions to an ongoing story in Japanese.
Materials Needed:
- Google Presentation
- (Very) Small Ball of Yarn
Warm-Up
- Maybe we just ask a few simple questions? Like, “What is a funny story from the semester?” If it’s quick, at least. Just something where they talk a little bit about the semester, since it’s the last day before finals week, you know? What do you think?
Main Activity
- Arrange the students in a circle and hand the first of them a ball of wool. The player has to start telling a story and then throw the ball of wool to another player while still holding one end of it.The next player has to continue the story and throw the wool again while still holding the thread, thus creating a spiderweb as the game progresses.At some point, it will be impossible for the players to hold the ball of wool and they will drop it. Whoever drops it has to do their best to recount the whole story!If you think that it would take too long, you can choose where the story ends by picking a player and making them wrap up the story.
Wrap-up
- Either plans for winter break or after graduation, or we could also just see if they have any questions for you before they take their 301 final
End of activity
- Read Can-Do statements once more and have students evaluate
their confidence.
(Use thumbs up/thumbs down or download our student cards.) - Encourage students to be honest in their self-evaluation.
- Pay attention, and try to use feedback for future activities!
NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements:
- I can start a story in Japanese.
- I can listen to and understand another person telling a story in Japanese.
- I can add my own contributions to an ongoing story in Japanese.
