Teach English in SunjiAwAn Zhen - Zhuzhou Shi

Teachers are always looking for ways to keep students engaged. One strategy is to use games in our lessons. Games are excellent activities for the Engage Phase and the Activate Phase. I adapted two family games – Snowman and Battleship – for young learners. Young learners can be defined as students from the ages of five to thirteen. This category can be further divided into Group 1 (ages 5 to 9) and Group 2 (ages 9 to 13). When choosing a game for either group, we must consider two factors: childhood development and cultural sensitivities. Where are the students in their childhood development? Younger learners (Group 1) have short attention spans and need simple activities. This group enjoys using movement in the learning process. Older students are more self-conscious about their physical movements, but they are more competitive and enjoy challenges. Each game can be suitable for both groups. However, I prefer Battleship for Group 2 because that group has developed more critical thinking skills. Be aware that some games may be offensive to some students. Hangman used to be a popular game among children in the United States. But many families left their native countries to escape violence. In the United States, hanging should not be taken lightly due to the history of lynching African Americans in the not-too-distant past. In this case, I call the game Snowman. SNOWMAN is a fill-in-the blank game that tests memory while promoting speaking and listening skills. The only materials needed are markers and erasers for the whiteboard (or blackboard) where the action takes place. Snowman can be used in the Engage Phase to review vocabulary. It also brings attention to the teacher at the front of the classroom which helps bring order to the start of class. How to Play SNOWMAN 1. Select a word. Do not reveal the word to the students. If the words used in the game are from the same category, write that on the board and tell them that they should think of words in this category. 2. On the board, draw dashes to indicate blank spaces to be filled in. There will be one blank space for each letter in the word. 3. Students call out letters to fill in the blanks. Correct letters called out are placed over the proper dashes. 4. When students give an incorrect letter, construct a snowman piece by piece. Draw the snowman's head for the first wrong guess. Continue by drawing other elements such as the body, arms, eyes, nose, mouth, and legs for each wrong guess. The objective is to guess the word before the drawing of the snowman is complete. 5. Tell students to hold up their hands and wait to be called on when they think they know the word. If a student guesses an incorrect word, the game continues. 6. The game ends when a correct guess has been given before the snowman is complete or all the blanks are filled in. BATTLESHIP is a strategy game. This version for upper-level students combines repeated phrases with new information to form different, complete sentences. The game exercises reading, listening, and speaking skills. Create a ruled grid of 10 x 10 squares. Each square is identified by a letter/number combination as is done in chess. The horizontal axis is labeled with letters A – J and the vertical axis is labeled with numbers 1 – 10. Each square is filled with a vocabulary word(s). Onto this grid, students will locate their ships. Teams do not share this information with the competition. Students will question each other in a prescribed manner to locate their opponents’ ships. These phrases are the chunks students will repeat during the game: • Questions begin with the phrase: “Do you have….” (Chunk 1) • Answers begin with “Yes, I have…” or “No, I do not have….” (Chunks 2/3) • Questions and answers end with “…on your/my battleship.” (Chunks 4/5) Questions are formed by combining Chunk 1 + word from grid + Chunk 4. Answers are formed by combining Chunk 2/3 + word from grid + Chunk 5. Example: • Team 1 - Do you have apples on your battleship? • Team 2 -Yes, I have apples on my battleship. How to play BATTLESHIP 1. Form teams of 1 – 3 students. Two teams compete against each other. 2. Each team receives two identical grids. Label one grid “My Ships” where teams draw a border around their ships of 2-5 contiguous squares per ship. The other grid is labeled “Enemy Ships.” Explain that there are no people on the ships to be hurt. 3. Play starts when Team 1 asks the other “Do you have …” plus a word(s) found on the grid. Let’s say “an orange” is in square B4. “Do you have an orange on your battleship?” 4. If one of the opponent’s ships (Team 2) sits astride B4, the opponent says “Yes, I have an orange on my battleship. B4. Hit.” “Hit” signifies that the ship has been “struck.” Team 1 marks X on B4 on their Enemy Ships grid and Team 2 marks X on B4 on their My Ships grid. (Both teams mark a Hit.) Team 1 gets another turn. 5. If a ship is not located at B4, the opponent says, “No. I do not have an orange on my battleship. B4. Miss.” Team 1 marks O (a circle) on B4 on their Enemy Ships grid. Team 1 loses the turn. Team 2 now takes a turn. One person keeps a record of the grids called out. 6. Once all a ship’s squares have been “Hit,” that ship is declared “sunk.” The team who sinks all the opponent’s ships wins. Incorporating games into the classroom increases student talk time and interjects fun into the young-learner environment. Just remember to always test the games before presenting them to a class.