Freelance English teacher and games enthusiast Mike Astbury returns with another game idea for your classroom! This activity focuses on word formation with negative prefixes and includes downloadable cards which you can print out and use straight away.
I made this game as a fun and thoughtful way for my FCE class (or Cambridge First). With the exam in, mind the vocabulary in the game is intended for an upper-intermediate level group. Download the cards, gameboard and answer key to get started.
Preparation
The game is played in groups of four, and you’ll need one copy of the handout for every group of four students in your class. I tend to use different coloured paper for the cards as that way the different sets are less likely to get mixed together. Cut out the cards and cut the answer key page into two separate handouts.
How to play
Students play in groups of four, with two teams of two facing each other. The game board is placed between them and they shuffle their cards. The first three cards are drawn and placed above the board. The first team picks one of the three cards and puts them on the board on their side with the prefix that matches the word. They then draw a new card.
The two teams take it in turns to place words on their side of the board, next to the prefix that they think matches the word. Students are encouraged to discuss their choices and only pick when they agree. They have two objectives: To place words correctly and to have more correct words on their side of the board in each section at the end of the game.
The game is over when all of the cards have been used. Each team of two is then given an answer sheet and asked to check the opposing team’s answers. Any incorrect answers are taken away and don’t count towards their final score. This is useful because it ensures that students interact with all of the cards (not just the ones they knew and picked) and because they will be more vigilant and thorough in checking the other team’s answers if it might help them to win.
Note: It’s possible that students will make the mistake of guessing ‘unlike’ rather than ‘dislike’ thanks to Facebook. Use any removed cards to feed into a language review at the end of the lesson.
Once the incorrect cards have been removed, they count the number of correct answers for each prefix on each side. Students ‘win’ a prefix by having the most cards next to it and the goal is to ‘win’ more than the other team. This encourages an element of tactical play, where they choose a card because it might help them win a particular prefix, rather than students always picking the easiest option.
Additional
Students benefit from playing this game multiple times, adding in a time limit to add an additional challenge. Switch teams around to ensure that the same players aren’t always together and the same teams don’t win every time. You can add an extra stage at the end by putting the game on the whiteboard. Split the class into two teams and instead of using cards they can write any words they can think of that fit each prefix. Students have to take turns writing and if they write a duplicate it is immediately removed and they also lose a point from their total at the end (this stops students from copying the other team).
Here’s a picture of my whiteboard during a game with suffixes (download this version of the game).
The game is highly adaptable and could be replicated using PowerPoint or Google Slides. Find more games and activities and read Mike’s last article for a personalised sentence matching game.