Where? When? How?
I love using games in class! There are a couple of really great points about using games.
- Students have fun while practicing the target language.
- Games are a great chance for teaching and using “other” English.
This “other” English is stuff like negotiating whose turn, understanding the rules of the game, and checking that they’ve understood the rules while playing the game. In the past, I used to use more Japanese in class than I do now. I would sometimes explain the rules in Japanese so that we could spend more time practicing the target language. But then I went to one of Matthew de Wilde’s presentations and it made me think about the importance of this “other” language. So, now I use less Japanese in class.
This game is one that I developed with Learning World 2, Unit 6, Lesson 2. I used the Activity Sheets for this lesson to introduce the language and had the students sort the cards into the correct categories of “where”, “when”, and “how”. This was great, but I wanted to make a game to practice more. I often use small playing cards to play games. I have lots of games for pairs and a good one for 4-card sets, but this time I had 3 categories… I finally came upon the perfect idea: Clue!
The original Clue game is a murder mystery game. Someone has murdered the owner of the mansion. The board has nine rooms, there are characters and weapons. The winner has to correctly guess who did it, with what, and where.
The Activity Sheets had 9 places. Perfect! So I made a new game. The basic rules of the game are that you take one card from each category and hide them in an envelope. That is the answer. You deal out the remaining cards. Any card that you have in your hand is not in the envelope, so you can mark it off on your score sheet as not being the answer. During the game play, students move from room to room. Each time, they enter a room, they can make a guess. The guess includes one item from each category. Students have to guess by saying something like:
“Let’s go to the park on Sunday by bike.”
If the first student to their left has one (or more) of the cards, they have to show it just to the student making the guess. And if they have more than one, they can pick the one to show. If the first student does not have any of the cards guessed, then it moves on to the next student. As you see cards from other students, you can mark them off on your list. When only one item is left you know that that one item is the answer for that category. Once you know all of the items, you can make a final statement. If you are right, you win. If not, the rest of the students continue playing.
We didn’t completely finish the first game in the 50-minute class. It took them about half of that time to really get the rules. Once they got the rules, it was like a light bulb went off. The next class, we spent the entire 50 minutes playing the game. With 4 people playing that is about how long it took. You might think, “50 minutes just playing one game?!?” But the students loved it and were having fun. They were using lots of English! And not just the target language. There were things being said, like:
“Whose turn is it?”
“Do you have one of those cards?” “Do you have one?” “I’m sure you have it!”
“No, I don’t have one.” “Oops. I do have one.”
“Hey! You have that card!” (At the end of the game, after a student had made a mistake during the game.)
Here is everything you need to make the game yourself, including detailed instructions for making and playing the game!
