MASH is a future fortune game for junior high or high school students. It can be used along with activities teaching students how to write about what they want to do/be in the future. I, however, used it to follow up a Valentine's Day presentation, hence the heart-themed images (which you can change).

MASH in and of itself does not provide strong English practice, but as Japanese students are unfamiliar with the game, it is more of a cultural lesson to teach what fun things children like to play in other countries.

PS: It was my friend Justin who told me about using MASH in the classroom!

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How to use:

MASH has four future fortune categories. I used trump suits to visually separate them.

home (diamond)
city/country (club)
job (spade)
person to marry (heart)

The home possibilities are already selected, in the word MASH.
All the other category options are written-in by the person playing the game (student).

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Diamond: MASH stands for: Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House. Note that three homes are favorable and one unfavorable.

Club: The student chooses three favorable places to live and one unfavorable place. These can be cities or countries, ie) China, Paris, Mexico. The unfavorable place to live could also be a city or country, but it is more creative (and more politically correct) to choose strange places instead, such as Mars, the North Pole, or a garbage can.

Spade: This category is for a future job. I have included Japanese translation for 26 job occupations, listed in alphabetic order. Students choose three jobs they would like to do and one job they would not like to do.

I tried not to include "obviously" unfavorable jobs, such as garbage collector for G, because a student's parent very well could have that job and it all around puts the job down. So, just choosing a job that isn't desired doesn't mean the job has to be bad. I don't want to be a kickboxer, so I wrote that as the job I don't want.

Heart: This is where students write the names of people to "possibly" marry. Again, three are favorable and one is unfavorable. I always use names of celebrities when explaining the game to the class. For the unfavorable person, I will name a crazy comedian from TV, or even a cartoon character like Doraemon. Students could just write in all cartoon character names if you feel they might end up being too shy for this part of the game.

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After all fields have been completed, the game starts. To play the game, the student will need a number to count with. A number under 15 is usually best, maybe even just under 10.

To find a number, a spiral circle is drawn on paper and the rings in the spiral are counted. To do this, the student holds a pencil on a blank piece of paper (or back of worksheet). The ALT shouts "Start!" and the student begins drawing a spiral, starting from the inside of the spiral and working outward, not vice-versa. After 2 or 3 seconds the ALT shouts "Stop!" and the student counts his/her spiral rings. This is also demonstrated on the blackboard by the ALT.

Now, to use the number, begin with the letter "M" in MASH. Moving clockwise, count each option of all categories up to the number generated from the spiral.

For example, 6:

M is 1, A is 2, S is 3, H is 4, the first spade is 5, the second spade is 6. The sixth (second spade) is crossed off and disqualified. Then the count starts again, but this time continuing immediately after the second spade. So, Starting with the third spade, count to six and cross off the next option landed on.

This continues until there is only one option left in each category. That one left is circled. Any crossed off options are skipped over when counted. Also, the circled options are also skipped.

The options answers are then written in the blanks corresponding to the trump suits. Now the student knows his/her future fortune!