Who Do You Love?

I played a round of Who Do You Love? with my students on Friday. You put the chairs in a circle so almost everyone can sit down, and one person is left standing in the middle. The person in the middle asks someone sitting down “Who do you love?”

The person sitting down can say everyone, no one, or people who meet a certain condition. You can love people who have short hair or who wear sneakers or whose names begin with J, for example. Everyone who fits the condition has to get up and change places, and the person left without a seat is next in the middle.

It’s a fun game with a mad scramble for seats, and with even mildly creative students it gets better and better. I love people who can talk! I love people who wear underwear! I love people who don’t like Avril Lavigne!  With teenagers, through, things like “I love you!”, “I love Nicole!” and “I love handsome boys!” are just incredibly funny to say.

To be honest, though, I mostly did it to see if my duds could move quickly when required. One got right into the spirit of the game, and did a great job throwing herself into different seats and shrieking with her classmates. The other whined and whined about not wanting to play so I sent her to the library for “self-study”. (Our school’s euphemism for “listening to her iPod”, but at least it’s not in my classroom.)

The game has another advantage. I have one student in that class, let’s call him Charlie Gordon, who is usually last to catch on. One kid would say “I love people who wear pants!” and Charlie would sit for a few moments trying to remember if he has pants, and then end up in the middle again. But the good thing about this game is the person who falls behind lands in the middle more so they spend more time talking the English talk.