Tag Archives: boardgame

Double the fun: Travelling and Tourism Speaking Board with Two Decks of Cards

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One might think that after 31 years teaching, I wouldn’t need to spend time preparing for classes. After accumulating so much content over the years, it would seem logical to just retrieve what I need from my files. However, for some reason, that’s not how it works for me. As a result, I find myself once again in the process of creating content, this time on the subject of travelling.

This post revolves around the topic of Travelling and Tourism and considering what I have written above, I have come up with this brilliant 🙄 idea.   Use a board from Canva and replace specific questions with numbers, making it applicable to any topic. Alongside this, we can create cards that include the relevant questions and reference their corresponding numbers. What do you think?

Hold on, Cristina! Did you read the title of the post? It says “Two decks of cards”. So, we have one deck for questions, but what about the other one? I haven’t forgotten! The other deck contains useful phrases to help students express themselves more effectively. 😆

What do we need?
  • Print the board multiple times. Print as many copies as groups of students. What works best for me is groups of 3 students. Get the PDF here

board game Template de cristina.cabal

  • Cards with the conversation questions. One deck per group. PDF here

travelling conversation cards de cristina.cabal

    • Reusable cards with useful phrases. One deck per group. PDF here.
     
Ready to play?

    Create groups of 3–4 students and give each group a board game, the two decks of cards, counters and a die. Students decide who starts the game. Student A throws the die and places his/her counter on the corresponding square, which contains a number. On the deck of cards with the conversation questions, he/she finds the card that matches the number of his/her square, reads it aloud and then takes a card from the Useful Language deck. These cards are placed face down on the table.  The student will need to talk for at least two minutes, trying to use the expression on the card. Then, it is student B’s turn.

    CREDITS

  • Original board designed by @mrkucukyilmaz
  • Useful phrases from intercambiodeidiomas

A Speaking Board Game about Work with some Props

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A digital or analogue board game? Which do you fancy? For me, variety is key. So I tend to alternate between both types of exercises to keep things interesting. In this post, you will find both versions. Cheers to diversity!  But just so that you know, I am going to focus more on the analogue version where I can use props.

Who doesn’t love props? Using props in the classroom can be an effective tool for teaching. Props can help to engage students and bring an element of fun and creativity to a lesson. And right in the middle of winter ,when days are short and dark, I feel the need to add some extra spark to my lessons. Don’t you?

Board games have been around for a long, long time but, have you tried to design one? It is not easy. I have tried and failed. They looked awful. This time I have not wasted any time, and used Genial.ly’s Monopoly board game, which I have adapted to suit my content.

 

First, I made an online version (reusable in case you want to change something), which turned out great, but I decided to go old–school and print out the board, get a huge foam dice, and use some coloured counters. Not surprisingly, rolling a big red foam dice and having students use little markers to claim their spots really made a difference. 

Here’s the downloadable version if I have managed to persuade you to use the printed version of the board game.

TEACHER-GUIDED: HOW TO PLAY
  • Arrange students into groups of 3–4 students and give each group a board.
  • Each player in the group must choose a colour: blue, green, yellow, or red.  They will then receive a token to mark their position and 10 coloured counters (preferably, the same colour as their token) to indicate the questions they have answered correctly throughout the game. 
  • Each player should take their token and place it on the starting square. Write down the starting order of the students on the board, like this: blue first, then green, then yellow, and lastly red. To start playing, the teacher rolls the huge die and Blues move their token to the corresponding square.
  • If Blues can talk about the question non-stop for 2 minutes, they earn the right to place one of their blue counters on that square. That square is now officially theirs!
  • If another player lands on a square that is already occupied by a coloured counter, they will have to answer the question, but they will not claim the square.
  • Special squares: squares with icons contain penalties, such as “The player pays light taxes: loses 2 of his coloured counters.” (you can read the penalties in the digital version)
  • The player with the most coloured counters on the board, once all squares are occupied, will win the game.

I hope you enjoy the game!