Korean Job Discussion Forums

[alistaircandlin]

I teach in a boy's middle school and my class sizes average 38 - 42 students. My classroom is arranged in groups - with seven tables of six students.

These days I'm looking at how to use games in the classroom to encourage students to speak English. One thing I'm thinking about is which board games would be useful.

I'm thinking of:

Monopoly
Scrabble
Cluedo

Maybes are:

Risk
Trivial Pursuit Junior Edition

I've also been looking online, and have printed a few things to B3 and laminated them. I've pasted some sites below. Some of these are simple but effective, I've had whole classes speaking English while I just walk around and facilitate, which is great. I'd much rather "teach" like this most of the time than have whole class / teacher activities - call and response, chanting and so on - although obviously there's a place for this too. I'm not being flippant by saying that, as a general truth, the less teaching a teacher does, the better his lessons are. What I'm aiming for is to get students self motivated so I'm kind of tricking them into speaking English by playing games and just walking round assisting.

What I wanted to ask is: which games have you find useful? Also can you add any sites to my list?

Regards,

Alistair


These printable games, at eslgamesworld.com, are really useful, as are the templates. They are especially good for reviewing at the end of terms or chapters:

http://www.eslgamesworld.com/

There are some at bogglesworld that I've not checked out yet:

http://bogglesworldesl.com/esl_games.htm

Also here:

http://www.esl-lounge.com/board_games.shtml

has anyone tried wordup? - it's designed by a guy who used to work here in korea - looks promising:

http://www.teflgames.com/

[Fishead soup]

How good are your students. Some students of that age have no regard for Public property. At first pieces will get lost eventually boards and fake money will be vandalised ripped up and thrown away. If your school is footing the bill by all means do it. Although this might be something you should use during camps where it is easier to monitor students behavour.

Jenga is a good idea simply buy the wooden blocks write questions on them and have students remove blocks in groups and ask the questions on the block until the Jenga tower falls down.

[balzor]

If you can't explain it in 5 minutes or less, then they will be lost

[Troglodyte]

I have copies of Clue/Cluedo, Monopoly, and some others that I made up i Photoshop and MS Word. You can print them out and stick them to a large piece of cardboard. Or get a Korean version of the board and change the words for English ones. I printed some of the cards in color and laminated them. Some schools are fine with that. Some are to cheap to allow anything but basic printing/photocopying. With the money, I just printed up large amounts of it and had the kids color it with a crayon before cutting it out. With a dozen kids, the coloring and cutting goes really fast. Money did tend to get damaged but it was very easy to print up more. I also used the money for other games and as a point system for some activities. It's also useful for roleplays. And as an added bonus, since it was made in Photoshop, I could easily add in the face of top students. This motivated them as they all wanted to be on one of the banknotes (or the Clue cards).

I often use Clue without the board. Just the cards. It goes faster that way. Monopoly takes a long time to play but you can change the rules to speed it up. OR record who has what and finish the game later. It depends on how much time per week you have with the kids. I've even used them with low level students. Usually I use it to get their attention and keep them focused. While they're playing I casually ask them questions and try to get them to chat about something. The game keeps their attention and keeps them from worrying about whether I'm testing them while we speak. Flash card memory games are also good for that.

I've found that small kids are usually very competitive. If you give them a game with a very straight forward set of rules, they will play it with the intention of winning even if there's no prize at the end. Sometimes I play small games at the end of a class/day/week. Sometimes I use a point system and once they earn enough points they get a game.

But back to how to use the game (other than as a reward), I usually use it as something to keep the kids busy while I talk to them about something completely unrelated. Like having a chat while we play. You can also modify most board games to incorporate some kind of grammar or vocabulary. Maybe they get a question and if they answer it they get a certain number of dice rolls or they get additional cash/points.

If anyone wants them, let me know and I can try to send you files for Clue and Monopoly. I also have a Lord of the Rings version of Risk that I scanned. But I don't use it much with. It never really seemed popular with kids. Maybe it was too complicated to learn at the beginning.

[Dazed and Confused]

My students LOVE Boggle and UNO. They'll also tolerate irregular verb Bingo at parties.

[Troglodyte]

[lifeinkorea]

[winterfall]

[alistaircandlin]

Thanks for your replies everyone.

Troglodyte - I sent you a PM.

Alistair

[DosEquisXX]

I mostly used board games for camps because the classes were smaller and easier to control.

My students were addicted to Scrabble. I mean, they kept on misunderstanding the rules a bit. But the idea is to just keep them playing and enjoying camp. So, I didn't mind seeing gigantic blocks of letters in the middle of the board.

Go Fish and UNO work well also.

[Troglodyte]

[ajstew]

Apples to Apples (Kids Edition): for early and middle elementary school kids
Apples to Apples (Junior Edition): for upper elementary and middle school children

Both are great, and the regular edition can be used with university students and adults. They come with enough cards so that that they can be used in large classrooms of kids. Kids make comparisons and learn new vocabulary.

Scattergories (for most levels) and Taboo (for university students and adults) are good too.

[Chris.Quigley]

Boggle

+1

There is a version of boggle you can download off the internet. I used a projector to put it up in front of the whole class. Then all the groups could compete by looking for words. (Sorry, I don't have a link for that download...)

The games you mentioned might not be feasible in a class of 40 students. But if you manage to figure out how please post a reply!

[Troglodyte]

Clue might be good with large classes. Break the class unto groups of 5. Students in the same group can share a set of cards and plot their best strategy for solving the murder. I think that in groups it might actually go faster. I've sometimes played Clue with pairs of students sharing cards.

I've played Clue with 12 year olds before and was quite surprised at how fast they could catch on once you showed them a few strategies. When they worked in pairs they could really get to work on figuring out a plan to win. I've never played it with more than pairs but I found that with pairs they really speak to each other a lot. They have to speak in order to decide their next moves and to tell each other who they think has which cards. A good aspect of having teams in a strategy game is that it requires them to speak to each other but they don't see it as a speaking activity, so they aren't as self-conscious about making mistakes as they would with something that's obviously a speaking activity.

[ddeubel]

Clue really works well in the classroom. Very structured language practice, like battleship. But you have to edit the materials that come out of the box.

I have a whole ppt and cards made for EFL on EFL Classroom 2.0. go to resources - PPT games.

Board games work because they are so task based in most cases. great motivation.

DD
http://eflclassroom.com