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This game comes from Moira Taylor and Kira Cubukcuoglu at CUNY (the City College of New York). We added the X-Word cards. Just hand out the cards for the X-Words that you're studying. This game is challenging and pushes students to see if they are able to manipulate the tense formations. It is good to play this game a few times during the semester. The students become more adept with each time playing
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| Goal: |
to review and practice the 'learned' verb tenses with affirmative and negative sentences, wh-questions, and yes/no questions.
| Materials: |
- Verbs and time "board" on card stock. One for each group of 3.
- Dice
- X-Word cards (one set for each group)
- Verbs on newsprint or cards à
| Game set-up and play |
- Teacher writes all of the verbs from the class and book on newsprint. Go over the verbs with the whole class, noting which are irregular, which regular, and what the pronunciations are. (Option: have a class set of verb cards from your vocabulary. In my Grammar 4 class, we make cards for the 50 most common verbs in English and practice with them-BH)
- Model the game with a group of three. I find it most effective to tape one of the game obards to the black board, use three magnetized 'men' and have a group of three really play one round with the rest of the class watching.
- Ask the class several times what they are going to do in order to get all the steps a few times.
- One player rolls the die, moves the 'coin' and says what they landed on, e.g., Yes/No question. Also takes one X-word card (e.g., V/XD), reads it and says which x-word he will need to use (did)
- The player chooses a verb, tells the group and them makes an appropriate sentence or question, often with the help of the group. Refer the students to the Question Hand. If the player needed to ask a question, another player needs to answer it.
- Groups of 3 play. Teacher circulates and helps as needed. Some groups need help the first rounds even after modeling times.
| Options: |
- Print out the game boards and X-Word cards on different colors of card stock to keep them straight. (Example: one game board on pink, one set of X-word cards on pink)
- Remember you'll need one set for every 3 students or it gets boring.
- After the first round, move one player from each group to another group.
- If one group thinks it's "easy" make sure they're doing it right. If they are, increase the difficulty by giving them more advanced X-Word cards or by asking them to include a time expression (yesterday, three times a week, ago, this summer.)
X-Word Cards