Digital Play

By kylemawer 　http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/2010/06/15/a-game-of-geography/

This game can be played at a pre-intermediate level learning countries and nationalities or with a higher level wishing to consolidate and extend their awareness of countries and nationalities vocabulary.

Level: Pre-intermediate

Location: Connected classroom

Skills focus: Speaking & pronunciation

Language Focus: Countries and nationalities

Game:  Geography game

Preparation

1. Hangman for ‘countries/ and/ states’.
2. Brainstorm a few and elicit the name of a person who comes from there.  Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”, if you don’t know the answer yourself.

Play

1. Divide the class into teams of 3 or 4.
2. Tell them they have to identify a country (the game asks them to find the country) and say what you call a person who comes from there.
3. Play the game.  A learner from each team comes up and points to the country on the map.  If you know the answer (whether learners get it right or not) click on the country.  If you are not 100% sure but there is a general consensus then click on that country.  Otherwise choose the country the winning team chooses.
4. Learners get a point for getting the right country and minus a point if they get it wrong.  They then get the chance to earn a bonus point for identifying the person who comes from there.  If the team gets the bonus question wrong it is open to the class and the team that gets it right first (hands up no shouting it out)  gets the bonus.  There are no minus marks for this.
5. Play the game until all the countries have been eliminated (guessed right).  Teams add up their points and a winner is declared.

Post Play

Learners draw two columns.  First column is country and the second is person.  Give them a chance to try and remember the country and person from the game and fill in the columns before playing the game again.  This time play the game open class (no teams) and the class completes the columns.

Alternatively focus on pronunciation.  Learners may need a little practice on vowel sounds or word stress.  If you play the game twice then you may want to do some pronunciation work between the two.  In this way you can note down mistakes the first game and focus on them in the second game.

Note

Sometimes its a little difficult to be able to say who comes from that place (especially if the game is on the states of a country).  In these cases you can accept a common answer each time (African, American, Australian, European etc) or ask a general knowledge question about the country.  You will need to do a bit of extra research and preparation for this though.  Some suggested general questions may include:

What colour is their flag?

What is the currency of this country?

What’s the name of a football team from here?

What language do they speak?

What’s the national animal?

What is the life expectancy for this country?

What are the names of three animals from there?

What are the names of three food products grown there?