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CATESOL Book Review: New Ways in Teaching with Games By Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov and Randall Sadler
07/16/2024
Michelle Skowbo
New Ways in Teaching with Games
This game was appealing as it can be appropriate for all learner levels but, in particular, beginner and intermediate young learners came to mind when reading this activity. It is played using a small portable dry-erase board. Students are divided into groups either at desks/tables or on the floor. The teacher states a vocabulary word out loud and the student with the dry-erase board writes the first letter of the word using a dry erase-marker and passes the board and marker to the next student. This student writes the second letter in the word and the process continues until the word is complete. When groups are finished writing the words, they shout out the word and the first to do so is the winner. Thus, each group is competing to finish spelling the word before the other groups. Students can then be asked to write sentences or a story with the individual words presented.
Slam Dunk Sentences: Reviewing Vocabulary in Context
This is a run activity to have students learn, reinforce, or review vocabulary. The teacher prepares a set of sentences with the identified words, and types out the associated words in large font and prints/glues each word to an index card. Each index card for each sentence will be in a different pile in a random order in front of a basket/table/box. To play the game, students are divided into groups and the first student in the group tosses the ball into the basket. If the student gets the ball in the basket, the student gets to select a word card, and if not, the student goes to the back and passes the ball to the next student in the group. Once a group has collected all the word cards, they organize them in a sentence and the teacher checks the outcome. Students can then be asked to write a new sentence with the new words learned. This game was of interest as it can be adapted for a variety of levels, from beginners with simple grammar structures, to more compound or complex sentences for more advanced learners, which allows learners to focus on vocabulary as well as grammar structures indirectly.
Section II: Dice Games
Dicing Lightening
This is a simple game for intermediate or advanced learners, where the teacher writes a list of words on the board and also the key for what the numbers of the die will refer to regarding what it means to know a word (i.e., spelling, pronunciation, meaning etc.). In groups, students work through the list of words on the board by throwing the die and responding to what the number requires them to explain/do regarding the word. For example, if Number 1 refers to pronunciation, the student would pronounce the word and if Number 6 refers to the meaning of the word, the student would either act out/describe its meaning. The suggested key for the numbers on the die are: Number 1: Define the word, Number 2: Provide a synonym of the word, Number 3: Provide an antonym of the word, Number 4: Use the word in a sentence, Number 5: Give two collocations and/or phrase associated with the word, Number 6: Act out the meaning of the word.
Irregular Past Participle Roll
In this game students receive a handout with six columns, for example, verbs with similar irregular past tense patterns together in a column. The number of rows is up to the teacher, but possibly three rows providing three verbs in the dictionary form in each column. To play the game, students ask each other “Have you ever…”, selecting a verb and the correct past tense form. For example, one student selects sleep from the chart and asks another in the group, “Have you ever slept on a boat?” If a student gets the form incorrect, he/she can be challenged by the question giver or other students in the group. A system for correct forms can be used to generate competition and student engagement. This game was attractive as struggles with irregular past forms are common and this game provides meaningful practice with multiple opportunities for repetition.
Section III: Board Games
Game of Lies: Grill the Teacher
The game begins with the teacher writing ten statements on the board, five that are true about things he/she has done and five that are false. Students are placed in groups and come up with questions to interrogate the teacher to be able to identify which statements are true and which are not. The focus often is on questions with verbs in the past tense. The students in each group take turns asking their questions and then have some time to come to a decision about each statement. The teacher can place a chart (i.e., board game) on the board with numbers/names of the teams down the far left column of the chart, with the number of each of the ten statements across the top row. The boxes within the grid can then hold the answers (i.e., True (T), False (F)) of the teams’ decisions. The game can also be played on an online format using a Smartboard function or Kahoot. In this game, students get to practice forming questions while engaging in meaningful interaction, and it is adaptable for all levels, so it was of interest to the authors.
The Game of Finding Commonalities
Here students have a board developed by the teacher with a word in each space along the board’s path. Each student received a determined number of tokens (i.e., plastic chips, paperclips etc.), Students roll the die and when they land on a square, they have to use the word to say something true about themselves. Students for whom the statement is also true need to give up a token. The game ends when one person is out of tokens. This game is also beneficial for students to use language in personalized and meaningful interaction, and it is adaptable for all levels.
This section also has some games that are based on commercial board games that are adapted for language learning and practice. However, the authors selected two games of interest that entail no cost and require minimal preparation time.
This vocabulary game involves students using drawing, miming, or verbal definitions to convey the meanings of words to their teammates. The game starts with vocabulary words written on index cards, each marked with a number indicating the method to be used (1 for drawing, 2 for miming, 3 for defining). Students are divided into teams and take turns selecting a card and communicating the word's meaning by drawing, miming, or providing the definition of the word for their teammates, who have one minute to guess the word. If the team cannot provide the correct word, the other team may try to guess it. Teams earn points for correct guesses, fostering a competitive and collaborative environment. The game continues until all cards are used, with a final tally determining the winning team. Afterwards the teacher may choose to work on the words that presented difficulty for the students and ask them to write sentences using the key vocabulary. This activity enhances vocabulary retention and encourages creativity and non-verbal communication in an engaging, and interactive way.
Creative Narration with Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time is a collaborative storytelling card game that helps students understand narrative elements by creating a fairy tale together. The game begins with students making or using cards that depict characters, items, places, aspects, and events typical of fairy tales. Each player receives a set of six cards, including an “interrupt” card and a "Happy Ever After" card, and the class is divided into groups.
The first storyteller starts the tale, playing a card from their hand whenever its topic is mentioned. If another player has a matching card, they can interrupt and become the new storyteller. The storytelling continues until a player runs out of cards and plays their "Happy Ever After" card to conclude the story and win the game. If a storyteller pauses for more than 10 seconds, rambles, or stops making sense, their turn ends, and the next player takes over.
The game can be adapted for different group sizes and customized with blank cards for added creativity. After the game, players share their stories with the class, enhancing their understanding of plot and narrative elements through engaging, interactive play.
Vocabulary Photo Scavenger Hunt
In this engaging scavenger hunt activity, pairs or teams of students venture outside the classroom to take photos of items that correspond to each letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. Armed with cameras or smartphones, they capture images of objects starting with each letter within a set time limit, typically 10-15 minutes. Upon returning to the classroom, students create a PowerPoint presentation, combining their photos with corresponding text and sentences. This interactive game reinforces vocabulary learning by associating everyday items with words and enhances teamwork and communication skills as students collaborate to complete the task.
The scavenger hunt game is particularly beneficial for language learners as it encourages them to apply their vocabulary knowledge in real-world contexts and promotes active learning. The competitive element adds excitement and motivation and it can be easily adapted for different levels by adjusting the complexity of the vocabulary and can be conducted indoors if necessary.
Risky World: Knowledge is Power
Risky World is an engaging game to promote student fluency, listening skills, and quick thinking. Students are divided into groups, each selecting a different color. The game begins with an interactive map displayed on a screen, and the instructor poses questions to the groups in turn. If a group answers correctly within the time limit, they click on their color and then on the country they wish to conquer on the map. If they are unable to answer, other groups have the chance to steal the question. This continues until all questions are exhausted or time runs out. The group with the most conquered countries at the end of the game wins.
The competition element, combined with the visual and interactive nature of the map helps in retaining attention and making the learning experience fun. Optional variations include using questions of varying difficulty levels or allowing all groups to answer simultaneously using tools like Google Forms.
This is a dynamic classroom activity designed to enhance language learning through quick thinking and effective communication. The game fosters listening skills, speaking, and strategic competence. Before starting, a set of pre-prepared questions is kept confidential from the students. Divided into two teams, students face off in a timed session where they pass a ball while answering questions posed by the instructor. The catch? They never know how much time they have to respond, adding a challenging element of stress and urgency. The goal is to answer each question satisfactorily before passing the ball to an opponent. Errors result in strikes against the team, and the team with the fewest strikes after three rounds wins. This game can be used for a quick warm-up activity at the beginning of a lesson, or it can be used for review practice. It encourages natural speech production, and it also allows for targeted error correction between rounds, addressing pronunciation, grammar, or other specific skills. Optional variations include adding physical commands for younger learners or adjusting rules to suit different class dynamics and can include adding writing and reading, making it adaptable for various proficiency levels and teaching goals.
Salad Bowl Game
In the Vocabulary Salad Bowl game, students engage in both creating and guessing vocabulary words in a lively group setting, making it an engaging language learning activity. Participants begin by preparing bowls or baskets and writing down vocabulary words on small pieces of paper. Divided into teams, each group contributes an equal number of words to their salad bowl, which they then pass to another group. The game unfolds over three rounds, each increasing in difficulty.
In Round 1, students provide descriptive clues to help their teammates guess the words without using the actual vocabulary. Round 2 intensifies the challenge as players are restricted to using only one-word hints. Finally, in Round 3, communication becomes non-verbal, relying solely on gestures and body language. The team that successfully completes all three rounds first wins, with subsequent rounds allowing other teams to compete for subsequent rankings.
This game encourages active vocabulary recall, descriptive skills, and effective communication strategies. It promotes both expressive and receptive language abilities in a fun and cooperative manner. Optional variations include focusing on specific themes or linguistic targets, adapting across different proficiency levels and educational objectives.
Michelle Skowbo
New Ways in Teaching with Games
By Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov and Randall Sadler
By Sonia Estima & Kara Mac Donald
The book, New Ways in Teaching with Games, offers a variety of creative and engaging games for teachers to use in their classrooms that require very little preparation time. The Introduction describes how the text provides recipe-format, at-a-glance activity descriptions to engage ESL/ELL/EFL students in the classroom through play. The book is divided into six sections based on the nature of and/or materials used to play the game. The categories are games played with pencil and paper, dice, tabletop boards, technology (i.e., online, apps etc.) and other miscellaneous equipment. Each section offers a variety of games, ranging from nine to fourteen or more. It would be impossible to provide a summary of each game presented, as the review would essentially be replicating the same content in the at-a-glance activity descriptions. The authors will share two sample activity descriptions that stand out to them to provide readers with the different types of games represented in the book for a wide range of students.
Section I: Traditional Pencil and Paper Games
Carousel SpellingThis game was appealing as it can be appropriate for all learner levels but, in particular, beginner and intermediate young learners came to mind when reading this activity. It is played using a small portable dry-erase board. Students are divided into groups either at desks/tables or on the floor. The teacher states a vocabulary word out loud and the student with the dry-erase board writes the first letter of the word using a dry erase-marker and passes the board and marker to the next student. This student writes the second letter in the word and the process continues until the word is complete. When groups are finished writing the words, they shout out the word and the first to do so is the winner. Thus, each group is competing to finish spelling the word before the other groups. Students can then be asked to write sentences or a story with the individual words presented.
Slam Dunk Sentences: Reviewing Vocabulary in Context
This is a run activity to have students learn, reinforce, or review vocabulary. The teacher prepares a set of sentences with the identified words, and types out the associated words in large font and prints/glues each word to an index card. Each index card for each sentence will be in a different pile in a random order in front of a basket/table/box. To play the game, students are divided into groups and the first student in the group tosses the ball into the basket. If the student gets the ball in the basket, the student gets to select a word card, and if not, the student goes to the back and passes the ball to the next student in the group. Once a group has collected all the word cards, they organize them in a sentence and the teacher checks the outcome. Students can then be asked to write a new sentence with the new words learned. This game was of interest as it can be adapted for a variety of levels, from beginners with simple grammar structures, to more compound or complex sentences for more advanced learners, which allows learners to focus on vocabulary as well as grammar structures indirectly.
Section II: Dice Games
Dicing Lightening
This is a simple game for intermediate or advanced learners, where the teacher writes a list of words on the board and also the key for what the numbers of the die will refer to regarding what it means to know a word (i.e., spelling, pronunciation, meaning etc.). In groups, students work through the list of words on the board by throwing the die and responding to what the number requires them to explain/do regarding the word. For example, if Number 1 refers to pronunciation, the student would pronounce the word and if Number 6 refers to the meaning of the word, the student would either act out/describe its meaning. The suggested key for the numbers on the die are: Number 1: Define the word, Number 2: Provide a synonym of the word, Number 3: Provide an antonym of the word, Number 4: Use the word in a sentence, Number 5: Give two collocations and/or phrase associated with the word, Number 6: Act out the meaning of the word.
Irregular Past Participle Roll
In this game students receive a handout with six columns, for example, verbs with similar irregular past tense patterns together in a column. The number of rows is up to the teacher, but possibly three rows providing three verbs in the dictionary form in each column. To play the game, students ask each other “Have you ever…”, selecting a verb and the correct past tense form. For example, one student selects sleep from the chart and asks another in the group, “Have you ever slept on a boat?” If a student gets the form incorrect, he/she can be challenged by the question giver or other students in the group. A system for correct forms can be used to generate competition and student engagement. This game was attractive as struggles with irregular past forms are common and this game provides meaningful practice with multiple opportunities for repetition.
Section III: Board Games
Game of Lies: Grill the Teacher
The game begins with the teacher writing ten statements on the board, five that are true about things he/she has done and five that are false. Students are placed in groups and come up with questions to interrogate the teacher to be able to identify which statements are true and which are not. The focus often is on questions with verbs in the past tense. The students in each group take turns asking their questions and then have some time to come to a decision about each statement. The teacher can place a chart (i.e., board game) on the board with numbers/names of the teams down the far left column of the chart, with the number of each of the ten statements across the top row. The boxes within the grid can then hold the answers (i.e., True (T), False (F)) of the teams’ decisions. The game can also be played on an online format using a Smartboard function or Kahoot. In this game, students get to practice forming questions while engaging in meaningful interaction, and it is adaptable for all levels, so it was of interest to the authors.
The Game of Finding Commonalities
Here students have a board developed by the teacher with a word in each space along the board’s path. Each student received a determined number of tokens (i.e., plastic chips, paperclips etc.), Students roll the die and when they land on a square, they have to use the word to say something true about themselves. Students for whom the statement is also true need to give up a token. The game ends when one person is out of tokens. This game is also beneficial for students to use language in personalized and meaningful interaction, and it is adaptable for all levels.
This section also has some games that are based on commercial board games that are adapted for language learning and practice. However, the authors selected two games of interest that entail no cost and require minimal preparation time.
Section IV: Card Games
Draw, Mime, or DefineThis vocabulary game involves students using drawing, miming, or verbal definitions to convey the meanings of words to their teammates. The game starts with vocabulary words written on index cards, each marked with a number indicating the method to be used (1 for drawing, 2 for miming, 3 for defining). Students are divided into teams and take turns selecting a card and communicating the word's meaning by drawing, miming, or providing the definition of the word for their teammates, who have one minute to guess the word. If the team cannot provide the correct word, the other team may try to guess it. Teams earn points for correct guesses, fostering a competitive and collaborative environment. The game continues until all cards are used, with a final tally determining the winning team. Afterwards the teacher may choose to work on the words that presented difficulty for the students and ask them to write sentences using the key vocabulary. This activity enhances vocabulary retention and encourages creativity and non-verbal communication in an engaging, and interactive way.
Creative Narration with Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time is a collaborative storytelling card game that helps students understand narrative elements by creating a fairy tale together. The game begins with students making or using cards that depict characters, items, places, aspects, and events typical of fairy tales. Each player receives a set of six cards, including an “interrupt” card and a "Happy Ever After" card, and the class is divided into groups.
The first storyteller starts the tale, playing a card from their hand whenever its topic is mentioned. If another player has a matching card, they can interrupt and become the new storyteller. The storytelling continues until a player runs out of cards and plays their "Happy Ever After" card to conclude the story and win the game. If a storyteller pauses for more than 10 seconds, rambles, or stops making sense, their turn ends, and the next player takes over.
The game can be adapted for different group sizes and customized with blank cards for added creativity. After the game, players share their stories with the class, enhancing their understanding of plot and narrative elements through engaging, interactive play.
Section V: Technology-Mediated Games: Online, Apps and More
Vocabulary Photo Scavenger HuntIn this engaging scavenger hunt activity, pairs or teams of students venture outside the classroom to take photos of items that correspond to each letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. Armed with cameras or smartphones, they capture images of objects starting with each letter within a set time limit, typically 10-15 minutes. Upon returning to the classroom, students create a PowerPoint presentation, combining their photos with corresponding text and sentences. This interactive game reinforces vocabulary learning by associating everyday items with words and enhances teamwork and communication skills as students collaborate to complete the task.
The scavenger hunt game is particularly beneficial for language learners as it encourages them to apply their vocabulary knowledge in real-world contexts and promotes active learning. The competitive element adds excitement and motivation and it can be easily adapted for different levels by adjusting the complexity of the vocabulary and can be conducted indoors if necessary.
Risky World: Knowledge is Power
Risky World is an engaging game to promote student fluency, listening skills, and quick thinking. Students are divided into groups, each selecting a different color. The game begins with an interactive map displayed on a screen, and the instructor poses questions to the groups in turn. If a group answers correctly within the time limit, they click on their color and then on the country they wish to conquer on the map. If they are unable to answer, other groups have the chance to steal the question. This continues until all questions are exhausted or time runs out. The group with the most conquered countries at the end of the game wins.
The competition element, combined with the visual and interactive nature of the map helps in retaining attention and making the learning experience fun. Optional variations include using questions of varying difficulty levels or allowing all groups to answer simultaneously using tools like Google Forms.
Section VI: Miscellaneous Games
Under Pressure: Active Listening and ResponseThis is a dynamic classroom activity designed to enhance language learning through quick thinking and effective communication. The game fosters listening skills, speaking, and strategic competence. Before starting, a set of pre-prepared questions is kept confidential from the students. Divided into two teams, students face off in a timed session where they pass a ball while answering questions posed by the instructor. The catch? They never know how much time they have to respond, adding a challenging element of stress and urgency. The goal is to answer each question satisfactorily before passing the ball to an opponent. Errors result in strikes against the team, and the team with the fewest strikes after three rounds wins. This game can be used for a quick warm-up activity at the beginning of a lesson, or it can be used for review practice. It encourages natural speech production, and it also allows for targeted error correction between rounds, addressing pronunciation, grammar, or other specific skills. Optional variations include adding physical commands for younger learners or adjusting rules to suit different class dynamics and can include adding writing and reading, making it adaptable for various proficiency levels and teaching goals.
Salad Bowl Game
In the Vocabulary Salad Bowl game, students engage in both creating and guessing vocabulary words in a lively group setting, making it an engaging language learning activity. Participants begin by preparing bowls or baskets and writing down vocabulary words on small pieces of paper. Divided into teams, each group contributes an equal number of words to their salad bowl, which they then pass to another group. The game unfolds over three rounds, each increasing in difficulty.
In Round 1, students provide descriptive clues to help their teammates guess the words without using the actual vocabulary. Round 2 intensifies the challenge as players are restricted to using only one-word hints. Finally, in Round 3, communication becomes non-verbal, relying solely on gestures and body language. The team that successfully completes all three rounds first wins, with subsequent rounds allowing other teams to compete for subsequent rankings.
This game encourages active vocabulary recall, descriptive skills, and effective communication strategies. It promotes both expressive and receptive language abilities in a fun and cooperative manner. Optional variations include focusing on specific themes or linguistic targets, adapting across different proficiency levels and educational objectives.