Aim of the Game
The aim of the game is to find pairs of cards through remembering where they are laid on the game table. The person who finds the most pairs once they’ve all been matched is the winner.
Pre Class Preparation Complete the handout by creating sixteen pairs of cards. The pairs could be lexical phrase and definition, adjacency pairs, infinitive and past participle, verb patterns etc. Cut up the completed handout to make a pack of pelmanism cards for each group of 3/4 learners. Keep the pairs separate in two piles of sixteen cards. It may help to copy the handouts onto coloured paper/card and use different colours for each half of a pack of 32 cards.
Procedure
Explain to the learners they are going to practise your target language through a memory game.
Elicit the rules of pelmanism from the learners if they have played before or the game is popular in your context.
Demonstrate the game with one group of learners.
Split the learners into groups of 3/4 learners.
Ask one learner in each group to deal out the two halves of the pack face down in four rows of four, so that all of the cards are laid down on the game table in two groups of four rows of four.
Learners take it in turns to turn over one card from each half of the pack and try to match them. Encourage learners to use each language item in a context sentence as they turn it over, or combine the two items in a single context where appropriate.
If the cards make a pair, the learner keeps them and takes another turn to turn over two more cards. If the cards do not make a pair, the learner replaces them face down in the same place as before and the turn moves to the learner to their left.
Once all of the cards have been matched, the person who has found the most pairs is the winner.