This is a very simple game which is perfect for revision, and requires almost no pre-class preparation. All you need is some small pieces of scrap paper, some kind of blutack to stick it to the table, dice for each group, and a counter for each student. The blutack is optional, but it does stop the paper from blowing away! You could use post-it notes instead, but sometimes they curl up making it easy to see the answers! It works best for revising grammar or vocabulary in closed questions.
Give a pile of pieces of paper to each pair/group of students. Ask them to go through the units of the book which you want them to revise. They should write questions for other students in the class, writing one question on each piece of paper, and write the answer on the back. They can create the questions themselves, or copy them directly from the book, along with any relevant instructions, like ‘Write the correct form of the verb.’ My students normally spend about 15-20 minutes doing this. Here are some examples from my intermediate group:
Once you have a pile of questions, shuffle them all up (easier if you have scrap paper than post-it notes at this point!), then divide them evenly between all of the groups in the class. Each group should lay out a track of questions to create a board game, so it looks something like this:
The groups then play the board game. When they roll, they should answer the question they land on. If they’re correct, they can stay there. If not, they have to go back to the question they were on at the start of the turn. The winner is the person who gets to the end first, or who is in the lead when they run out of time.
I got this idea from somebody at IH Brno, but unfortunately I can’t remember who. I use it almost every time I’m revising for a mid-year or end-of-year test, and it always prompts a lot of discussion. The group shown in these pictures even asked if we could keep playing it when I said the time was up!
I like it because as well as reminding the students of the grammar and vocabulary areas likely to appear in the test, it always prompts a lot of discussion and shows them which areas they still need to revise.
Enjoy!
Sandy Millin 
Sounds like a great game–fun, interactive, Ss-centered, gets them out of their seats, and gets them revising! Will definitely be using this at some pount! And maybe the person you got it from was called Nina? She’s the only teacher I know in Brno, so it may be a ling shot, but you never know!
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I only got to know Nina after I left Brno, and I still haven’t met her face-to-face, but hope I will one day! Good try though đŸ™‚
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I am probably old school, but I quite like my sentences to have verbs in them. The example you posted above “She much _____ more intelligent than her brother” sits uneasily with me. Myself, I would have added in the third person singular of ‘to be’, probably in the present tense.
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You’re completely right, and I actually corrected that one when we got round to playing it in the game. Sorry I missed it in the photo! Part of the idea with copying the sentences is that students make mistakes like that because they are not part of their internalized grammar – for example, Russian-speaking students tend to miss out the verb ‘be’ and articles because they are not part of their mother tongue. By correcting it and drawing the students’ attention to it, you help them to notice differences between L1 and L2 grammar.
Thanks for pointing out the mistake!
Sandy
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Hi Sandy,
Just to let you know that we’ve shortlisted this blog post for this month’s TeachingEnglish blog award and I’ll be making a post about it on today’s TeachingEnglish Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/TeachingEnglish.BritishCouncil, if you’d like to check there for likes and comments.
Hope you’re still OK and hanging on in there in Sevastopol!
Best,
Ann
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Thanks a lot Ann! It’s a nice change to think about something positive like that at the moment! đŸ™‚
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I have enjoyed a lot
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