Favorite games: the Name Tag Game

I love to play short and easy games with my class. The simpler, the better. This game has been a favorite of mine for years. I've used it with 5 year old students, primary kids, teenagers and adult learners and they all love it.

Purpose: stress-relief, getting to know a new group, listening skills
Setting: in a circle (sitting on the floor or on chairs or standing up)
Number of players: 10 - 30 is the most fun
Time: 5-10 minutes
Needed equipment: none

Rules: Form a circle with your group. One person stands in the middle. The game-starter (usually me) calls out a name, e.g "Harry". Now Harry needs to call out a new name before the person in the middle tags him. If Harry is tagged before he calls out a new name, he gets to go in the middle. If he calls out a new name, e.g. "Noy", the person in the middle needs to tag Noy before she calls out a new name.

Variations:

1. With older kids and adults I sometimes use a newspaper to tag each other on the knees. Great way to stress-relief!
2. In stead of using names, you can give everybody a word to use. For example new vocabulary words you have been practicing, numbers, geographical names, animals, .....
3. To prevent that the same names are being called out all the time you can add in extra rules during the game: boys need to call out girls, you can't call out the person who called out your name, you can't call out the person you called out last time, ....

Have fun playing this game with your class. Leave a comment to tell me how it went.