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Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

The Domination Game by @teflgeek

I learned about this fantastic game accidentally while visiting the teflgeek's blog. Great blog with a lot of useful ideas!
I immediately saw how I could use it with my students for revising certain grammar or vocabulary items.

The game is played in teams, four to be precise, and the goal is to win as many squares as possible.

I made a grid of 30 squares with numbers for the questions and some additional "home" and "centre" squares. I prepared a list of questions 1-30 which had to be answered by looking for answers in the course book.
The teams picked a colour and took turns in choosing a square and providing the correct answer. If the answer was right, the square took the team's colour. If the answer was wrong, the team lost the move and the square remained blank.

To make the game a little more challenging, the teams could get an additional point if they won 3 squares in a row (see squares 2, 11 and base) or 3 squares touching with their sides in a different configuration. They could also win one of the central squares if they surrounded it "by their colour" (see squares 9, 3, 15 + the central square). They could also surround the opponent's square on 3 sides and then the square was won over and changed its colour.
The original game was slightly different but I easily adapted it to the level of my 14 year old students.

To tell the truth, counting the points for me was the trickiest part as I was sitting at the computer and using Paint to change the colour of the squares right away plus checking if the answers given by the students were correct. In the end students helped me to count the points and made sure I did not overlook anything.
This is how the grid looked at the end of the game.


My biggest thanks to David Petrie whose idea I took, adapted and used very successfully. My students loved the game and, as usual in such cases, asked for more. I am thinking about it.

Just one question to @teflgeek. Why "domination"?

Saturday, 20 November 2010

Games that teach geography

There are numerous sites which offer online games for checking your knowledge in geography.

One of the most popular kinds of quizzes is recognizing the flags of the countries like Geography Genius. You can choose the level and read the clues about the country. Great source of information!














Another popular kind of geography games is finding a place on the map. I love Geosense which asks you to identify the world countries. You can play the game alone or against someone on the net.














Finally, there are games which ask you to point at a specific location on the map as close to the actual place as possible. I love the one on the TravelPod website. Really challenging!
There is a variety of games about each continent, UNESCO sites, capitals and flags of the world in The Traveler IQ Challenge® and they even let you embed the games on your own website.