Tag: No-Prep

Geen categorie, vocabulary

Vocabulary: Revision Bingo

Astrid van Houwelingen

Getting students to revise their vocabulary often enough so it sticks can be a tough one. Students find it tedious. They feel like they know it all after having read through the list a couple of times. Getting them to be active and work with the vocabulary can be a challenge. But there is no better way to get students’ interest than the words let’s play a game. In this case: BINGO!

The Basics

Level: A1-C2 (Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Revising vocabulary, listening
Time: 20-30 minutes
Materials: Vocabulary list, empty bingo cards (or let your students make a grid in their notebooks)

Aim

Students revise their vocabulary. This can be done either before a test or after you have set some vocabulary revision homework.

The task

So if you have never heard of BINGO, it is a fairly simple game in which you listen out for the information in your grid and cross it out once your number, or in this case word, has been called.

If you want to get started quickly you can make the cards yourself beforehand and skip to step 3 or even four. However, if you’re more like me, you make your students do the hard work.

  1. Explain the game to students that have never done the game before. You might want to model it the first time.
  2. Give your students an empty card or let them make a grid in their notebook (3×3 or 4×4 or 5×5). The larger the grid the longer the game will take.
  3. Instruct them to fill their grid with words from the vocabulary list you are going to call out from. You can let them write down the word in their native language or the word in the target language.
  4. Once students have their bingo cards ready you will tell them when they have bingo. Is it one vertical/diagonal/horizontal row or the whole card. Agree with students what the ‘penalty’ will be for a false bingo. My class opted for singing a song in front of the other students.
  5. One by one, call the translation or definition of the words. The students will have to mark off the word that has the same meaning. Keep tabs on which words you have called to be able to check for false bingo.
  6. When a student calls BINGO! they will have to show their card to you to verify they were correct. If so, congratulate them or give them a small prize. If not, let them perform the previously agreed on penalty.
  7. You can choose to give other students a chance at bingo or let them have a go at filling up their cards.

Additional ideas

If you do not work with translations in your wordlist but words and definitions then this would work just as well. Let the students fill in the word and you read out the definitions. You could do it the other way around but that would take up some time when creating the bingo card. Nice homework task though!

If you do not have a vocabulary list per se but you do want to expand your students’ vocabulary you could let them play bingo with synonyms or even antonyms. You would need to agree on a set of words that are part of the game. A selection of words from a reading text could work well here.

Over to you: Do you have any other ways in which a game like BINGO could be used in the classroom?

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

vocabulary

Vocabulary: 30 Seconds revision game

Astrid van Houwelingen

At the time of writing we are getting closer and closer to the Christmas holidays. The cold, short days and holiday preparations take their toll on students and teachers. People are getting tired and with the two-week school break approaching it is tempting to just put on a dvd or log in to Netflix and call it a listening activity.

But what if we can find a way to bring the Christmas spirit into the classroom without the help of a Christmas film? When asked what students enjoy most about Christmas with their families, many students mention playing games with their loved ones and enjoying each other’s company. Now I am not one to leave a suggestion like that go unnoticed. And because my students were sitting a vocabulary test I dusted off the old 30 seconds vocabulary revision game. Let’s play!

The Basics

Level: B1-C2 (Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Revising vocabulary, speaking, listening
Time: 20-30 minutes
Materials: Vocabulary list, palm-sized cards (or let your students cut these), timers or stopwatches

Aim

Students revise their vocabulary. This can be done either before a test or after you have set some vocabulary revision homework.

The task

30 seconds is a family board game in which two or more teams of 2-4 people battle against each other. One member of the team pulls a card from the deck and gets 30 seconds to describe to their team the five words or terms that are listed on the card. The word itself or translations thereof cannot be used. For each correct guess the team gets a point. When the 30 seconds are up the turn goes to the next team. The team with the most points wins the game. (In this instance I don’t use the board itself. It does not add much to the gameplay in my opinion)

If you want to get started quickly you can make the cards yourself beforehand and skip to step 4. However, if you’re more like me, you make your students do the hard work.

  1. Explain the game to students that have never done the game before. You might want to model it the first time.
  2. Give your students an empty card.
  3. Instruct them to write down five words from their vocabulary list on the card and return them to you once they are finished.
  4. Divide the class into teams and put them around a set of tables shoved together.
  5. Put the stack of cards in the middle and provide a timer (or let the students use the timer on their phones)
  6. Let them play and enjoy the scene.

Additional ideas

With a larger group of students you will find it works better to divide the group into smaller groups of a maximum of ten students. When this is the case you will need as many sets of cards as you have groups of students. This is easily done by asking students to not make one but two or three cards. The students can give these back to you and you divide the cards into two or more stacks, creating two or more game sets.

Depending on the amount of words they had to study you can ask them to make two of the same cards or two different cards.

If you want an even distribution of the words between students you can assign them units or pages of vocabulary.

If you have a pre-intermediate group or a group who finds it difficult to describe vocabulary in the target language you could give them more time to describe the terms. Note, however, that if you allow them too much time, the pressure of the game subsides and the stress factor, which makes it fun, is taken out.

Of course you can save the sets of cards to play in future. It saves you time when you want to play it with another class next week, next semester or next year.

Over to you: Do you ever use family games in your classroom?

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

vocabulary

Vocabulary: Revision Games

Astrid van Houwelingen

When it comes to making things ‘stick’ revision is the key word. Although repeating words until a student remembers them can be an arduous task, it is essential to learning a language. Of course revising by repeating the words with flash cards or using a vocabulary revision app can be useful. But if you want to liven things up a bit there are many activities and games you can play with your students that will have them begging for some more revision please…

And of course we aim to please. That is why I have designed a slideshow with six no-prep games that you can use in your lessons when you want them to repeat those words and still have some fun!

The Basics

Level: A2-C2 (Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Revising vocabulary, writing, speaking
Time: 15-60 minutes depending on the activity you choose
Materials: Vocabulary list, sheets of paper

Aim

Students revise their vocabulary. This can be done either before a test or after you have set some vocabulary revision homework.

The task

In the presentation below you can find six different ways of revising vocabulary. There are instructions on making your own gapfill, writing a short story, making a quiz, playing forbidden word, playing ‘Who is it’ and describing and guessing someone’s character. Because students do more than matching the word and definition or translation it also builds their confidence about writing and speaking in the target language.

Additional ideas

There are many other game forms that lend themselves well to be used in the language class. How about bingo with irregular verbs or playing charades with the words on the vocabulary list? Fun is guaranteed.

Over to you: Do you have fun ideas for revising vocabulary? Let us know in the comment section below.

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid