LEVEL: Any
TIME: 1 hour
PURPOSE:
Writing, Reading, Speaking, Listening, Creative Thinking, Group work
PREPARATION:
- Divide students into groups of 2-3 students each.
- Print and gather materials in advance. This may involve cutting paper.
MATERIALS:
- 1 copy of an empty board game template for every group. There are several of these for free online.
- 30 card-sized sheets of paper per group (you can get 8 “cards” from a letter size paper)
- Scissors, for cutting the cards
GOAL:
Students create their own board game, then practice their English skills with the board game created by their peers.
ACTIVITY:
The rules of the game is this:
- You have a board game. On the tiles are shapes: circle, square, and triangle.
- You have cards. Side A has a shape. Side B has a question.
- Students play in groups of 2-3 students.
- Player A rolls dice and move their pieces forward on the board.
- Whatever shape they land on, their teammate (Player B) picks up a card with that shape. They ask the question on the card.
- Player A answers the question.
- Repeat for Player B.
For beginner students, keep it simple. For more advance, you can add additional rules or penalties, for example: Spots that say “Go back to start” or “Go back 2 spaces.” In the end, playing the board game is only part of the assignment.
Now let’s make the board game! And by make, I mean the students make their own themselves. Yay!
This actual first part involves giving instructions. There are–once again 3 shapes. Students work in their groups. They draw shapes on the board tiles. They then need to create the cards with the questions. Each shape has a question type, depending on what you want to practice.
For example:
- Circles are “Past tense” questions
- Triangles are “What” questions
- Squares are everything else
When the students are done, distribute the board games to different groups and play away!