Saturday 20 September 2014

Battleships

I've been playing around with different ways to use Battleships in class. It's just a good, old-fashioned information gap activity really.
Usually, it's done with letters of the alphabet and numbers as per the image above. (Here's one version of the basic rules.) I've been experimenting with other combinations - such as hobbies / activities down the side and hate / dislike / don't really like / like / really like / prefer / favourite across the top of the grid.
I put these in English (or use images to represent them), but you could put them in the target language if you prefer. I tend to leave space for the weaker students to write the TL in as a prompt.
In this version, students ask "do you really like basketball?", selecting a degree of liking and an activity. If that coordinate is a hit, their partner answers yes, if it's a miss, they answer no. I'd make them use full sentence answers for practice.
Of course, the question for "Is sleeping your favourite?" is a differently structured question in many languages, so you may want to get your students tho think about how to ask each of the different questions before they start.
It's another way to drill questions & answers, as well as the vocab.
Alternatively, the degrees of liking could be replaced with days of the week, times of day etc...
If you don't like the idea of calling it Battleships and don't want to use different types of ship, you could call it Hide & Seek and call each of your "ships" something else.

Any other ideas for variations?
What other "old favourite" games do you adapt for your language class?
I'd love to hear from you!
Danielle

2 comments:

  1. a couple of hours after posting this, I heard about this site: http://www.frenchteacher.net/teachers-guide/games-that-work/
    In their version of Battleships, they have suggested (among other things) having foods going down the side and drinks across the top - the conversation then goes as follows:
    student A: What would you like to order?
    student B: A mango juice and fried rice.

    There are lots of other great games and variations there - definitely worth checking out!

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  2. I've also use Battleships with transport & destinations (eg - "do you catch the *bus* to *the beach*?") Worked really well!

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