Engels: Usefun games

Try not to have a good time. This is supposed to be educational.

Malcolm Forbes

Eline Bruyndonx

2 Baso b

Biologie, Engels, Nederlands

Jen Van Loock

Academiejaar 2007-2008


Task Description

Select usefun games: 5 in the Globe (section English), 3 on the Internet and 2 of your own imagination to improve pupils' skills. Make sure you focus on all skills (listening - speaking - reading - writing).

Describe the rules briefly, decide upon the target group and if possible link with curriculum (e.g. 2nd form - beginners' level after studying the alphabet) and create the material that should be used during the chosen games (e.g. special dice).

Send this information to all your fellow-students and to me!

1. Do me a favour

(Source: Elementary communication games)

Skills practiced: speaking, listening

Target group: 3rd form after studying Asking questions, Household tasks

Procedure: Divide the class into groups of three or four and copy one set of cards and a rules sheet for each group. The cards are divided into request cards, showing an action that needs doing, and reply cards, showing the completed action.

Request cards have a question mark? In the top right hand corner: reply cards have a tick .

The object of the game is for players to collect matching pairs of request and reply cards.

The players should sit in their groups around a table and deal out ten cards to each player. The remaining cards should be placed face down in a pile in the middle of the table.

The players should look at their cards and sort out any matching request and reply cards. These should be discarded.

The players then take it in turns to make requests based on the cards in their hand. The request may be addressed to anyone in the group.

When players have a reply card that corresponds to the request, they should give it to the player making the request with an appropriate response.

If they do not have such a card they should refuse the request with an appropriate response.

When a request is complied with, both cards should be discarded. When a request is refused, the person requesting should take another card from the pile in the middle. The winner is the player who gets rid of all her/his cards first.

Exponent: Can/Could you…?

Yes, of course.

Sorry, I’m busy/I can’t at the moment.

Essential vocabulary: clean (the window/floor/coat/carpet), sweep (the floor), mend (the vase/window), post (the letter), empty (the bin/ashtray), clear (the table), put away (the records), tidy, make the bed, do the washing-up/the shopping, make the coffee, open (the door), close (the window), wash (the clothes), mow the lawn, paint (the room), answer (the telephone).

2. Shopping lists

(Source: Elementary communication games)

Skills practiced: speaking (reading)

Target group: 3rd form, vocabulary review after studying food, chemist’s items, amounts, containers

Procedure: The game may be played with any number of students. Copy enough shopping lists –one for every student in the class.

Than copy the picture cards. Make sure that there is a picture card for every item on the lists.

Give each student a shopping list and four randomly selected picture cards.

The object of the game is for each student to acquire the items on the list. To do this, they must mover around the class asking other students for the things they need. They should specify the quantities they need: for example, Have you got any raspberry jam? Yes, how much do you want? Two jars.

If students are unfamiliar with imperial weights, the teacher should alter the weights to appropriate metric weights on the master before copying.

Exponent: Have you got any/a…?

How much/many do you want?

Essential vocabulary: butter, pears, eggs, coffee, salt, milk, biscuits, lettuce, rice, apples, peas, bananas, chocolate(s), carrots, chicken, oranges, crisps, jam, strawberry, raspberry, sugar, beef, flour, lemon, cheese, onions, potatoes, steak, bread, tea, shampoo, toothpaste, yoghurt, cabbage, soup, mushrooms, tomatoes, sardines, spaghetti; jar, packet, carton, bar piece, tin box, joint, bottle, loaf, tube.

3. Blackboard bingo

(Source: Five-minute activities, Penny Ur, Andrew Wright)

Skills practiced: listening, reading

Target group: 2nd form and higher (vocabulary revision)

Procedure: Write down on the blackboard 10 to 15 words which you would like to review. Tell the students to choose any five of them and write them down. Read out loud the words, one by one and in any order. If the students have written down one of the words you call out they cross it off. When they have crossed of all their five words they tell you, by shouting ‘Bingo’. Keep a record of what you say in order to be able to check that the students really have heard all their words.

Variation: The procedure above demands recognition of sound and spelling relationships. You can make the activity more demanding by giving, for example, a definition of the words. The students must then listen for meaning and match this definition with their words.

Note: If, at the end of the lesson, there are a number of sentences or individual words written on the board, you can use them for Blackboard bingo.

4. Erasing words

(Source: Five-minute activities, Penny Ur, Andrew Wright)

Skills practiced: reading and writing

Target group: 2nd form and higher (spelling, vocabulary review)

Procedure: Write down on the blackboard about ten words which are difficult to spell, and give the class a minute to ‘photograph’ them. Point to one word, then erase it; the students write it down from memory. And so on, until all the words have been erased. Check the spellings.

5. Pictionary, Draw a word

(Source: Five-minute activities, Penny Ur, Andrew Wright)

Skills practiced: speaking (vocabulary review)

Target group: 2nd form and higher

Procedure: Whisper a word to a student, or write down on a slip of paper, a word or phrase that the class has recently learnt. The student draws a representation of it on the board: this can be a drawing, a symbol, or a hint clarified through mime. The rest of the class has to guess the item.

Variation: This technique can also be used to guess proverbs, once the class has learnt a number of them.

6. Finding the page

(Source: Five-minute activities, Penny Ur, Andrew Wright)

Skills practiced: reading

Target group: 2nd form and higher. Quick dictionary search (provided all the pupils have the same dictionary).

Procedure: Write up or dictate a series of words (possibly ones the have learnt them recently). The students have to find each word in the dictionary and write down the number of the page where it appears. You, of course have to do the same! How may of the words can they find the right page for in three, four or five minutes?

The aim of the exercise –which the students should be made aware of- is to improve their speed and efficiency in finding words in the dictionary.

Variation: For monolingual classes that have standard bilingual dictionaries, give a word in the native language. They have to find the page where the English equivalent appears – but at the English end of the dictionary. For instance, if you give a class of French students the word ‘rouge’, they have to look up and find the English word ‘red’.

7. Words beginning with…

Skills practiced: writing, speaking

Target group: 3rd form and higher (vocabulary, spelling)

Procedure: Give a letter, and ask the students to write down as many words as they can that begin with it in two minutes. They can do this individually, or in pairs or small groups. Then they tell you what their words are, and you write them up on the board. Encourage students to ask for explanations of words that any of them did not know.

It is a good idea at the writing-up stage to have an aim: Can we all together get 20, 30 or 40 words?

Variation: Ask students to think of words that end in a certain letter, or –much easier, for elementary classes- that simply include it.

8. Word cards

(Source: http://familyfun.go.com)

Skills practiced: reading (writing)

Target group: 2nd form after studying Constructing sentences.

Procedure: For this activity you will need thick felt tip pens and strips of paper or card. The simplest way of preparing the strips is to tear of cut A4 paper into four strips.

If you have time, write the words on the strips beforehand, one word per strip. Alternatively, the students do this for you. The words can be taken from sentences in your course book. Ensure that there is a reasonable balance of words so that a variety of sentences can be built up with them.

A fast way of doing this is to take one sentence from the course book and then to add alternative words for the different parts of the sentence.

You need between five and 15 word cards.

Students take it in turns to come to the front of the class and to stand facing the class showing their word card. Succeeding students should stand with the other students so that their words begin to make up a sentence. As a sentence begins to emerge, it may be that students displaying their words have to move further along or further back in the sentence. This is an activity which provides an intense experience of sentence construction and in a form which many students can appreciate.

You might like to give out some blank cards. The students with blank cards can stand in any position and be any word which makes the sentence complete.

9. Class Trivia Game

(Source: http://familyfun.go.com)

Skills practiced: writing, reading, speaking, and listening

Target group: 3rd form and higher

Procedure: You can learn all about your class history with this homemade version of the ever-popular Trivial Pursuit.

What do you need: colored index cards and pens (optional: photographs, tape recordings, game boards).

How to play: Before play begins, pupils write down trivia questions that only their fellow-students might know: "How did Billy lose his front tooth?", "What did Jim say during English?", and so on. For a multimedia effect, cards can also ask questions about accompanying photographs or tape recordings.

The game can then be played in any number of ways--individually, in teams, on a game board or just as a quiz contest.

Memory

(Source: http://www.rinkworks.com/games)

Skills practiced: reading, speaking

Target group: 2nd form and higher (vocabulary review)

Procedure: Memory is a card game designed for two people or for 2 groups of people. You need an even number of cards: one set with picture and one with words or definition matching each picture card. Cards are laid out in a grid face down, and players take turns flipping pairs of cards over. On each turn, the player will first turn one card over, then a second. If the two cards match, the player scores one point, the two cards are removed from the game, and the player gets another turn. If they do not match, the cards are turned back over.

The object is to match more pairs of cards than the opposing player. (One point is scored for each matched pair, and the player with the highest score after all cards have been matched wins.) When cards are turned over, it is important to remember where they are for when the matching card is turned up later in the game.

English: Usefun games 5