TeachingGamesEFL.com – by Mike Astbury

I wrote an early post about the game Dobble, and how its mechanics could be used to practice vocabulary and grammar. This is an update that includes three sets I’ve made for you to download and use with your class. To read the original post click here.

Instructions

In the three sets I’ve made there are 13 cards with 4 pictures on each card. There are 13 different pictures and if you take any two cards they will always have 1 (and only 1) picture in common. To play, each player has a card face up in front of them and the remaining cards are in a single pile face down. Each round one person turns over the top card and the first player to name their matching picture is the winner. The winner takes the new card and puts it on top of their old card and you play the next round. It’s fast, simple and fun. An example is below:

The top three cards represent players and the bottom card is the one that has just been turned over. Each player has to find the one picture that is on both their own card and on the new card. If the middle player says “he’s brushing his teeth” before the other players say their sentence, then the middle player wins the card and he puts it face up over his old card.

You continue until every card has been used and then the winner is the person with the most cards at the end. Once students have played it once with you, they can play it on their own and you are free to monitor for pronunciation and form. The game can be played in groups of between two and four students. The game is an easy way to practise any vocabulary you like and you can click here to download a template and make your own set.

Set one – Present continuous

This is the set from the previous example. It was made for elementary students to practise the present continuous. To win the card students have to say a full sentence:

• He’s playing football
• She’s going shopping
• He’s brushing his teeth
• She’s listening to music

These are all activities that the students in my class are familiar with but it also functions as vocabulary practice. Sentences include he, she and they.

To download the set click here.

Set two – countable/uncountable nouns

This next set is also for lower levels. It can be used for food vocabulary practice first, and then used to practise countable and uncountable nouns. In the first case students would only have to say “potatoes”, “milk” or “orange juice”. Once they understand how the game works, add the grammar element where Students have to say  a full sentence to win the card:

• There is an apple
• There is some chocolate
• There is some milk
• There are some strawberries

As with the previous set, once students understand how the game works and they can play it themselves, your role is to monitor and pick out common errors to focus on at the end of the game.

To download the set click here.

Set three – a and an

I made this set for my younger students to practise animal vocabulary. It is made up of animals they struggled to remember such as swan, frog and jellyfish. The grammar focus is with a and an:

• It’s a panda
• It’s a seahorse
• It’s a frog
• It’s a jellyfish
• It’s an elephant
• It’s an octopus

To download the set click here.

As I said in my original post I’d encourage you to make your own sets for whatever vocabulary or sentence structure you’re studying in class. It’s a very flexible game that can be adapted in many ways. For a template and full instructions go to my first blog post here.

Thanks for reading!

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