Daffodil International University
Faculty of Humanities and Social Science => English => Topic started by: Tahsina on May 17, 2015, 12:15:29 PM
-
In this thread I have planned to give details about some games I play/played/will play in my classes. As these are tried and will be tried, you can adopt a few in your classes too. :D
Do comment if you have any suggestions or add if you have any games. But please do not copy a game from any source which you didn't practice.
-
The first one involves the use of adjectives and adverbs. In this guessing game the students need to think of a noun (an object/fruit/animal/person...the list goes on) and give clues to the class by describing it. The class try to locate the noun.
For example, 'I am thinking of an animal which is huge in size. Thus it walks slowly but when in danger it can run fast. It can live both in water and on land. It has small eyes and a tail. ... ...'
I noticed that this game instigates curiosity and fun among the students and they use adjectives and adverbs in context.
-
I used the hangman game for different cases. For example, the teacher can write a sentence (Desert is the _ _ _ _ _ _ place on earth) on the board with a blank space for a word. For the example in the parenthesis the clue is it's an adjective. The students guess the word by uttering the letters which they think will fit in the word. The teacher draws the hangman if the students' guesses are wrong. The students win if they can get the word. :D
-
I used this game for preposition classes. This gets the whole class excited. You have to be prepared that there will be shouts, laughter etc in the class while playing this game. You can declare a few rules in the beginning - like how one team should raise their hands to be given permission to tell the answer, how you'll select if there are more hands from one team, after getting negative marking which team gets the next chance etc.
For the first part of the game the teacher needs to divide the whole class into groups. You can decide the number of members for each group. You can name the group and these names will appear on the board. The groups will prepare preposition exercises and hand the list of sentences over to the teacher. You should tell how many sentences with blanks for preposition you are expecting. During preparation time the teacher needs to move around so that same kind of sentences don't get repeated.
After getting the 5 exercises (considering that you have 5 groups), the teacher will start the game. When the teacher utters the sentences loud, the group which prepared that particular exercise will keep mum, and the other 4 groups will get the chance to answer by raising their hands. For each correct answer the groups will get points and the teacher will write down the points in the columns for the groups. For wrong answer there will be - 1 (minus one) for the group.
At the end the points are counted and a winner is declared. :D
-
first one is an elephant 8)
-
Madam,
I didn't practice games in the class. But it sounds very effective. Class teacher of my son's class frequently uses games. :)He enjoys and learns very quickly.
-
Rafi, it was hippo. ;D
Got you!
-
The idea of practicing games in classroom sounds interesting!! I never tried but thinking of practicing some now.Thank you for the practical ideas ma'am.
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
You're welcome Tina. :D
-
In this thread I have planned to give details about some games I play/played/will play in my classes. As these are tried and will be tried, you can adopt a few in your classes too. :D
Do comment if you have any suggestions or add if you have any games. But please do not copy a game from any source which you didn't practice.
Dear Madam,
Gamification is already considered as a very effective teaching method as it promotes thinking and self learning among students. I personally is very glad to see that you are practicing this in your classes. I will keenly observe the development. I am also seeking your permission to share some of my ideas relevant to this topic here if its OK with you.
With best regards,
Khondker Mohammad Shah - Al - Mamun
Assistant Director
Daffodil International University
-
Tahsina Apu, you poured cold water on my answer (literally/metaphorically), otherwise, hell ya! I am right 8)
-
Dear Shah-Al-Mamun Vai,
Please share a few games that you practiced. Use this thread, then we might access and use your ideas in our class.
Thank you for taking the time to go through the posts. This is an inspiration!
-
Great work Tahsina Apu. I used to practice kind of similar games in teaching parts of speech with my students. For adjectives, I used to divide the class in boys and girls and made them giving compliments or even complaints to each other using adjectives . The complaints part would be interesting as a boy would say to a girl in the class " I am afraid of her because she is too organized/ beautiful/ sweet/ complaining" or a girl would say "I don't like him because he is always late/ too tall that I need to have my eyes up to forehead/similar to that". The whole class would roll on laughing.
Games, Songs, Puzzles give learning grammar an all-new shape to learner. I remember, I used to teach conditionals with the song 'If I were a millionaire' and my students loved the video of the original song dated back 50 years or so. The comic making of the video had an interesting impression in their minds and they would pick up rules of conditionals without giving conscious effort. The next thing I used to make them do is write your own song in today's perspective.
-
Dear Madam,
It truly sounds interesting. I have liked all the ideas you have shared. Hope to use some of them in my class.
-
I have done another game called 'chain story' in my class. In this game students need to sit in a circle. Each student gets a white paper. Everyone starts together by writing the first sentence of a story. Then they pass their papers to the person sitting next to him/her in clockwise or anti clockwise turn. Then everyone adds the second sentence to the sentence written by their peer before. This goes on until the teacher stops the turn. But the teacher monitoring should declare that after 2/3 turns they should stop so that students can draw a conclusion to the stories. So there will be 10 stories if there are 10 students. Finally the students will give a title for each story.
This activity keeps everyone involved. The students need to read whatever was written by their peers before and then creatively think and add sentences.
Here are two examples from my class:
1. Meditation is very useful to mankind. (student 1 didn't have any idea, this isn't usually a story sentence, but notice how the next student turns it into a story)
Thus a hermit lived in a jungle for 10 years in meditation. (student 2)
After 10 years he saw an angel in front of him. (student 3 used repetition which could be avoided but he took it to a different direction)
He was so much excited to see an angel in front of him. (student 4 couldn't elaborate much but rather repeated)
. . . . . . . . .
2. I am a student of Daffodil International University. (student 1 didn't know what to write!)
I am doing BA in English here. (student 2 couldn't turn it into a story)
When I first came to this university, I fell in love with its beautiful campus and a beautiful girl in the BBA Department. (student 3 turned it!)
Then I went near the girl and asked her name. (student 4 had some development)
At first she looked at me, smiled and then told her name. (student 5 is adding up)
. . . . . . . . .
-
Superb!! the students can really enjoy :)
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
Rabeya, yours is an interesting one! Will use it in my class. Thanks for sharing!
Others, please keep posting your games/ideas of games here!
Let's share and make our classes rocking and interesting!
-
There is another called 'Growing Story Chains' where students of a group of 4/5, first of all, review linkers, adjectives and adverbs and time references and write them on the board.
Then, write down a basic outline to a story-no more than a few lines. One Student tells the basic story to the rest of the group while the rest listen carefully. The second student retells the story, but adding in more vocabulary (adjectives, adverbs, linkers)... and this process continues with adding even more detail than the previous student for the rest of the members of the group.
The process is repeated with the next student's basic story of another group.
{Source: British Council Online. }
-
So many innovative ideas!!! I am learning all the way... :)
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
I used this vocabulary building game in my Introduction to Poetry class, but this can be used in other classes as well.
Students picked new words from the poem that they studied in the class. Towards the end of the class, each student mimed a word they liked and others predicted it. So from Gray's elegy they picked and mimed words like - furrow, gem, pomp etc. Sometimes the predictions were not correct but it was a fun activity with the acting. The teacher needs to encourage so that the shy students can gather the courage to come in the front to act.
-
The chain story seems to be the most engaging to me.Thank you for the innovative ideas Tahsina apu :)
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
Hello! Sorry for my delayed response even though I said that I would contribute.
I will not directly talk about any particular game that could be used for learning , rather will talk about Gamification itself that can be used to turn any lesson as enjoyable as a game.
Before we get into Gamification, lets see first what are the common requirement for a game:
1. Goals
2. Instructions to be followed
3. Reward
So to gamify a lesson we need the following in order:
1. Set the lesson goal
2. Share the instruction for achieving the goals
3. Select a reward for the students which would give them the feeling of achievement
Easy right?
Do not worry much about the reward though, it can be a leaderboard which would include the students' name in order according to their performance. The leaderboard can be made with an excel sheet. Students are competitive and this leaderboard can really make them drive into the gamified lesson.
To judge the result use a simple rubric :)
I hope this will help making a lot of gamified lessons. Feel free to let me know if there is any confusion or simply let me know your feedback. Feedback is important for both teaching and learning :)
-
Thanks for the useful post!
I am just a bit confused about leaderboard using excel sheet.... Do we have one for one particular course and with each game the result changes and students' names appear in different order?
Can you post a screenshot or something here?
-
Thanks for the useful post!
I am just a bit confused about leaderboard using excel sheet.... Do we have one for one particular course and with each game the result changes and students' names appear in different order?
Can you post a screenshot or something here?
Yes madam. One leaderboard per course. You can use a Google Spreadsheet to make one easily where you will have access to edit the sheet but students will be able to just view it. It will also update automatically as you update the data in respective column. Here is an example of what I am talking about:
(http://i59.tinypic.com/126clmp.jpg)
if you have problem viewing it from within the forum, try clicking the link below:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjLOdQMghhtHhisraYkSj-HZflBbVTSoU3uyEn_H0co/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bjLOdQMghhtHhisraYkSj-HZflBbVTSoU3uyEn_H0co/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true)
-
The chain story is interesting Tahsina madam,thanks for sharing :)
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
Dear Tahsina Madam,
Thanks for sharing the games you play with your students.
The first two games are new to me.
I've played the preposition game and the chain story with my students a number of times.But in my case, I've prepared the exercises of preposition myself.Thanks for sharing the idea.Now, I'll ask my students to make the exercises.
Regards,
Shamsi
-
Dear Rabeya,
Thanks for sharing your ideas.The song you are using for teaching conditionals is really a wonderful one.I'll use it in my class as well.
I would like to add one more activity of conditionals that my students found interesting.I did it through Hozza's stories.For example: You can share a story of Hozza like this and then can ask the students to fill the gaps like, If Hozza had a fry pan,-----------------------.
(In this way, I taught them 3rd conditional)
Story of a fry pan
Once Nasiruddin Hozza has thrown a big party in his residence. So he needs one big fry pan and he lend it from his neighbour.
After few days he returned the big fry pan including a small fry pan.
The neighbour asked the reason and he told that �Your fry pan gave birth to a new small fry pan, so i gave you both the fry pans.
The man happily received the fry pans. After some days Nasiruddin Hozza needs again the big fry pan and he went to his neighbour and brought the fry pan.
But long time passed Hozza did not return the fry pan.
So the neighbour came to him and asked for his fry pan. Hozza replied �Your fry pan died to give birth of her 2nd issue
Regards,
Shamsi
-
Dear Rabeya,
I also appreciate your adjective-complain /compliments activity.And, I would like to add a similar type.That is, in the first class, you can ask your students to describe himself or herself with an adjective which has to begin with the first letter of his/ her name.For example: Sincere Sajib / Lazy Lotus/ Adorable Afrin etc.The student has to explain the reason of choosing that particular adjective as well.It is a wonderful ice-breaking activity and I found my students enjoying it very much.
Bests,
Shamsi
-
Dear Mamun,
Thank you so far for the visual clarification. It really helped me to get the overall idea. Will have to use it to get used to it.
-
Dear Shamsi,
Thank you so much for going through all the posts and putting in more games. I loved the Hozza's one and 'adorable Afrin'. Will use them.
-
I like your 'chain story' Tahsina madam :) ...would think of it in my class as well.
Afroza Akhter Tina
Senior Lecturer
Department of English, DIU
-
Great!!!!!!!!! I will certainly follow.
-
Wow!! Madam I am surely going to practice these games in my classes. ....
Thank you for sharing. .... :)