1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES

10 Ways to Gamify Drilling Activities: Make Drilling More Meaningful and Fun

All you need is a sheet of paper.

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This post shows how the use of game mechanics can help a teacher design better drilling activities and turn repeated practice of target grammar or vocabulary into a cognitively engaging exercise.

  • Focus on the material to be practised and learning outcomes for your group of students: e.g. irregular verbs

It is essential to clearly see the ‘why’ in terms of language learning and use games and game techniques as a means to an end, rather than for their own sake. Bringing a game from the external world, without adapting it to learners’ needs and expected learning outcomes, may be just a waste of time (and money, if the game requires numerous handouts) in terms of learning. Games most certainly add a fun element to the lesson. However, if the main focus is on the game rather than what needs to be practised, it is only logical to expect improvement in engagement or enjoyability, which may or may not lead to improvement in performance.

  • Form of interaction: two or three students alternating between the roles.

Learning irregular verbs requires much memorization, drilling and practice. Ideally, every student should be given an opportunity to see, write, say and hear verb forms again and again. If you teach a large class, the most ideal option would be to have students work in pairs or small teams of 3 students in each.

  • Work less: Engage learners in the process of preparation for the game

Teachers typically carry the full load of preparation. Do less to achieve more. The preparation for the game might significantly maximise learning. Hand out a sheet of A4 paper to each student. They have to fold it in half 4 times to get a 4 by 4 grid (16 squares). Choose the form of filling in the squares with verbs: dictate the verbs and have students give their forms and write the verbs in spaces on the grid (offer to choose squares – choice); or give a second form and ask them to write down the verb (challenge); or give a list of verbs and get students to fill in one verb at a time and rotate their grids until all the grids have been filled in with verbs (novelty).

  • Think of the game elements to add: points, levels, goals, competition, uncertainty, taking turns, specific rules, time limit, game pieces, etc.

There are different game mechanics you can apply to one and the same worksheet. For example:

1 worksheet 10 games1
1 worksheet 10 games 2
1 worksheet 10 games 3

This is not an exhaustive list of games we can play. Instead of points, you may use money (e.g. 10 cents per word guessed) and turn the process into a truly enriching exercise for your students.

Every game has certain unique features or basic game elements that may help you create gameplay with a particular worksheet or particular area of language in focus. Again, what you want to achieve will define the rules of the game. If, apart from memorization of the forms, you target fluency and more meaningful production – use of verb forms in speech – in addition to giving forms, have students make sentences with these verbs. For example, instead of calling out words in Bingo, set the following rules:

Bingo: To play the game, pick a certain verb and ask the other student a question. If they answer it with the verb (e.g. in its second form), cross it off the bingo sheet. 

– What did you write first in your sheet?

– I wrote “to write”.

With a 4 x 4 grid, this will provide a maximum asking and answering run of 32 questions with the target language.

Change the interaction pattern of the game, e.g. have students move in the classroom and approach and ask other students, and you’ll get a more interesting form of bingo.

You can play any game in the classroom. You don’t need glossy cards and expensive boards. All you need is one worksheet that your students will create themselves.

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This post is part of my workshops for busy teachers working in low-resource conditions. If you’re interested in more ideas or games, please check my other posts:

PLAY & LEARN

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And more ideas are yet to come – watch this space!

39 Comments

  1. Are there any games or teqniques to teach simple present. Can teach but quickly children forget tenses in writing. Do you have any remedy.

      • Hi Mary Ann, I just enabled snowfall effect in the settings of the website. All wordpress powered websites should have it.

        Thank you for stopping by and happy holidays!

    • You can use the same grid to practice simple present. Instead of irregular verbs, have students fill the grids with other verbs/nouns and make up sentences in simple present that are true about them or their friends. If it’s writing which is a problem, get them to write these sentences down. I have a couple of games with a focus on writing, will try to post them soon.

      One more technique which works magic with kids is using chants. Check this post http://www.teachingvillage.org/2010/05/23/how-to-create-a-jazz-chant/

      Thanks for stopping by and happy holidays!

  2. Are there any games or teqniques to teach simple present. Can teach but quickly children forget tenses in writing. Do you have any remedy.

      • Hi Mary Ann, I just enabled snowfall effect in the settings of the website. All wordpress powered websites should have it.

        Thank you for stopping by and happy holidays!

    • You can use the same grid to practice simple present. Instead of irregular verbs, have students fill the grids with other verbs/nouns and make up sentences in simple present that are true about them or their friends. If it’s writing which is a problem, get them to write these sentences down. I have a couple of games with a focus on writing, will try to post them soon.

      One more technique which works magic with kids is using chants. Check this post http://www.teachingvillage.org/2010/05/23/how-to-create-a-jazz-chant/

      Thanks for stopping by and happy holidays!

  3. […] Researchers say that strong family bonds contribute to longer, healthier lives. If that’s true, building loving relationships can benefit you. Believe it or not, languages have families too! Linguists categorize languages into families, or groups, with similar backgrounds. English is part of the Indo-European language family. First, visualize your family tree. Hundreds of languages compose the Indo-European family, so linguists divide them into closely related subfamilies. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  6. […] I thought that I was well prepared but in both cases we encountered one big problem. Future tenses – will, going to, doing game. Future tenses – will, going to, doing: Practice future tenses – will, going to, doing using this ESL fun Game.This game is also excellent for classroom teaching. Teachers can engage students in a classroom vocabulary or grammar review. HyperGrammar. Welcome to HyperGrammar electronic grammar course at the University of Ottawa's Writing Centre. There are nine parts of speech. ThePartsofSpeech. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  7. […] I thought that I was well prepared but in both cases we encountered one big problem. Future tenses – will, going to, doing game. Future tenses – will, going to, doing: Practice future tenses – will, going to, doing using this ESL fun Game.This game is also excellent for classroom teaching. Teachers can engage students in a classroom vocabulary or grammar review. HyperGrammar. Welcome to HyperGrammar electronic grammar course at the University of Ottawa's Writing Centre. There are nine parts of speech. ThePartsofSpeech. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  8. […] I thought it would be useful to me, and to others, to gather links to the best free downloadable student hand-outs that are simple and useful. Here is my criteria. They need to be: * Fairly generic. By “generic,” I mean that they can be used more than one time during the year and, ideally, be applicable in a number of different lessons. . * Promote some degree of higher-order thinking. . * Free-of-charge, and not requiring even site registration in order to access it. This is just a beginning list I wanted to put out there. Here goes: You might want to start at Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Mindmapping, Flow Chart Tools, & Graphic Organizers. Teaching and Learning with Science Media is from KQED and shares some hand-outs that can be very useful in all subjects, not just in science. Here’s a Critical Reading Study Guide. Again, this is just the beginning. Related. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  9. […] I thought it would be useful to me, and to others, to gather links to the best free downloadable student hand-outs that are simple and useful. Here is my criteria. They need to be: * Fairly generic. By “generic,” I mean that they can be used more than one time during the year and, ideally, be applicable in a number of different lessons. . * Promote some degree of higher-order thinking. . * Free-of-charge, and not requiring even site registration in order to access it. This is just a beginning list I wanted to put out there. Here goes: You might want to start at Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Mindmapping, Flow Chart Tools, & Graphic Organizers. Teaching and Learning with Science Media is from KQED and shares some hand-outs that can be very useful in all subjects, not just in science. Here’s a Critical Reading Study Guide. Again, this is just the beginning. Related. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  10. […] For each of these sentences, choose either can or could. Be careful when deciding if the sentence is positive or negative. ESL Teacher Resources, Job Boards, and Worksheets. WorksheetWorks.com. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  11. […] For each of these sentences, choose either can or could. Be careful when deciding if the sentence is positive or negative. ESL Teacher Resources, Job Boards, and Worksheets. WorksheetWorks.com. 1 WORKSHEET – 10 GAMES | ELT-CATION. […]

  14. Thanks for your ideas! I love this post!
    There are two more ways to play with this piece of paper:
    1.finger twister: Teacher says 5 words. Students use their fingers (1 hand) to point to the words. See my post: http://blog.yam.com/moji2/article/109960237
    2. Show the word: Teacher says 1 word. Students fold the paper to show this word. See my post: http://blog.yam.com/moji2/article/71417861

    Thank you again! I will adapt these games and cite them! 😀
    My FB page: https://www.facebook.com/moji2day

  15. Thanks for your ideas! I love this post!
    There are two more ways to play with this piece of paper:
    1.finger twister: Teacher says 5 words. Students use their fingers (1 hand) to point to the words. See my post: http://blog.yam.com/moji2/article/109960237
    2. Show the word: Teacher says 1 word. Students fold the paper to show this word. See my post: http://blog.yam.com/moji2/article/71417861

    Thank you again! I will adapt these games and cite them! 😀
    My FB page: https://www.facebook.com/moji2day

  20. Hi Svetlana,

    I like your game ideas, especially the maze one!

    I’ve actually been working on making some online games in this same 4×4 format (great for its simplicity and suitability for displaying clearly and simply on phones, tablets, computers). They use data from Quizlet, please try them out here if you like, and let me know what you think:

    http://www.phrasebotapp.com/html5-games.html

    Cheers,

    Oliver

  21. Hi Svetlana,

    I like your game ideas, especially the maze one!

    I’ve actually been working on making some online games in this same 4×4 format (great for its simplicity and suitability for displaying clearly and simply on phones, tablets, computers). They use data from Quizlet, please try them out here if you like, and let me know what you think:

    http://www.phrasebotapp.com/html5-games.html

    Cheers,

    Oliver

  24. I’ve always said that a great teachers needs little more than a sheet of A4 to conduct a successful class (although extensive preparation is always preferable). Thanks for proving it to be true with these easy to use activities!

  25. I’ve always said that a great teachers needs little more than a sheet of A4 to conduct a successful class (although extensive preparation is always preferable). Thanks for proving it to be true with these easy to use activities!

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