If there's one thing that most (if not all) Korean middle school boys enjoy, it's computer games. That preference can easily be used to the advantage of a teacher who is also a bit of a "gamer." In my middle school experience, one of my teachers played an interesting "Civilization"-like strategy game in class that consisted simply of a few sheets of paper and poker chips where each group represented a country; each country could trade, conduct diplomacy, or attack each other. At one point, that game virtually came down to two superpowers with their own respective blocs and one superpower resorted to putting their "resource chips" into nuclear weapons! That made history a whole lot more interesting.
There are several types of "role-playing" that can be done - where students themselves take roles and act out in mock situations reflecting real life, dialogues where one person takes the role of person A and the other person takes the role of person B, and a game-like RPG. I noticed in a survey conducted among the students that the first one is actually quite unpopular among middle school students because they're mostly too shy to get up and act in front of their class; I tried it myself and it was a near-flop. However, the game-like RPG was immensely popular.
What I'm doing with my middle school kids is playing a game reminiscent of a computer RPG where the class is divided into groups and are given certain characters with certain attributes (for example, one character at "level 1" has 100 HP, can do 25 Damage, and has a "magic power" of 30). Characters have unique abilities (for example, one character is actually stronger at magic while another has the highest physical strength) and groups can make their character perform actions only through the use of a set of "Action Cards" (again, for each character, cards are unique). To use these cards, what I did in the first run of this game was have the students try to find the adverbs and adjectives in the sentences that I write up on the board. The first group that tells me which one is an adverb and which one is an adjective gets to use their card. Of course, this is all done after a 15-25 minute lesson (depending on the level of the class) on adverbs (I did this only a week after the adjectives lesson so they still knew what "adjectives" were). Groups are rewarded with points (sort of like "Experience Points" in computer/console RPGs) for getting their character to do actions. For the first game, I simply had them do a free-for-all. The groups all battle each other over a series of rounds. The kids really get into this game since it is so reminiscent to the things they play in their free time. They always get all excited when their character "levels up" and this really provides an incentive for them to try hard.
For more appeal, you could use characters from their favorite games or perhaps movies ("Lord of the Rings" perhaps). I borrowed characters from a newbie fantasy writer; we had an agreement so I can't disclose who it is and where the characters come from. ;)
One other thing - you should laminate your "Action Cards" when you have the chance. I forgot to do that this week so I've been having to manually copy and cut out "Action Cards" every day. Good thing I have the BMP file of the originals stored in my harddrive...
