Hi there!
It's been a while since my last post. It's not much of an excuse, but I have been very busy with my school and I have been working (and still am) on worksheets for LMQ. I will be posting updates about this on Twitter and Facebook in the near future....
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Preparing for a game of Tic Tac Toe....
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But today, I would like to share with you how I use one of the oldest games around, "TIC, TAC, TOE" as a tool to internalize and reinforce new target language. (there is a quick overview at the bottom of this post for those who don't know this game)
As always, the target language can be very basic : read a book, play volleyball, write English etc.
Or more extensive: I (don't) want to read a book, I (don't) like to read books etc. (the students giving their own opinions!)
It's also a great game to introduce the students to adjectives.... List up a handful of adjectives on the board, explain them and let them choose... (I think that) reading books is fun, playing volleyball is tiring, writing English is difficult etc. They will pick it up very fast....
The target language for both players can be the same or... (what I like to do) assign different target language to each player. (player 1 blue cards = target language A and player 2 pink cards = target language B)
When a game has finished, the players swap cards (colors) and use the new target language in the next game....
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| The Target Language is written on the board |
The students on the left use "I (don't) like to ...", the students on the right use "I (don't)want to ..."
How to play TIC TAC TOE:
Two players use a 3x3 grid and take turns writing down an X (batsu in Japanese) and a O (maru in Japanese). The first player who can get three (batsu or maru) in a straight line, wins the game. This line can be a horizontal, vertical or diagonal.... |
| Three in a row! |
When using LMQ to play this game, the objective of each player is to get three cards of the same color in a row. This means that you have to give each player five cards in one, single color. (only green cards, blue cards etc)
The cards in LMQ come in 5 different colors, so with two colors you can have a maximum of six students playing at the same time.... if you grab two more colors, you can have 12 people playing at the same time.... And if you are the lucky owner of two decks..... well you can have a whopping THIRTY people playing at the same time...
And finally, one thing which I really like about using TIC TAC TOE, is that the students usually become so focused on winning, that they forget that they are using English and, as a result, sound more relaxed and confident using the target language....
If you are interested and want to try TIC TAC TOE with your students, feel free to download the TIC TAC TOE board. (you do might want to laminate the sheet(s) for durability)
Well.... that's it for today.... I hope that this was helpful for you and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to use the comment space below....
If you are looking for more ideas/games to use with your students, be sure to check out the Thinking World Game Page.
Until next time....
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