Language BINGO!

For my last week in the school, I’ve prepared a Language Bingo to play with the 3^rd and 4^th grade of Primary School students, to review the vocabulary of the Didactic Unit topic they are studying at this moment, and to introduce more words related to these topics. 

The Language bingo is a great activity to learn a new language, since children are discovering new vocabulary in a fun way. At the same time, as they are continuously hearing and repeating these new words, they are also learning how to pronounce them correctly. Moreover, through this activity, children also learn impulse control as they have to wait for their turn, and to improve their hand eye-coordination as they have to put a token on their bingo cards to note that one of the words has been said.

Preparing a Language Bingo is quite simple. First, we have to make a list of the words we want to introduce, and make as many cards as we need, taking into account that no one can be like another because, this way, there could be more than one winner. Each card can have as many words as we want, depending on the level of difficulty. For example, the one I’ve created has eight words. The way of introducing the vocabulary also depends on what we want to focus. If we want to develop the oral skills (as in my case) we can put just a picture or a drawing, but if we want to emphasize the spelling and orthography, we can write the names under the pictures, or even put just the word without any picture. To make the bingo cards more resistant for future uses we can laminate them.

The general evaluation of this activity is very positive. Students have been really motivated as this is a game that gets easily their attention, and concentrated not only on the game, but also on the language since they need to remember the words to win. Moreover, this is a game for all levels of development, so no one is discriminated or undervalued. Everyone can play regardless of their difficulties to learn or to any other circumstances. So, I’ve checked how students that normally follow different materials to those of their mates, were very involved and happy to see that they could do the same as the rest of the class. In the end, the topics of the English books only contain eight or ten words of vocabulary and some grammatical structures, so as I’ve seen how these students are able to learn new words through a game… Why have they to do different things? Shouldn’t we adapt the materials to the students instead of adapting the students to the materials? I really think so and, in this case, I’ve verified that a more inclusive way of teaching was possible.

After the good results in the 3^rd and 4^th grade of Primary School, I’ve tried this same activity in the 1^st and 2^nd grade, and even with the three, four and five years-old kids. I’ve been surprised by the acceptance of this game in all these courses, as all of them have been able to follow the game, of course, adapting the amount of support provided by me. Therefore, I think that this activity can be very useful in terms of learning new vocabulary in a different and funny way, and for many other purposes depending on the approach that we want to give. For instance, we can also encourage the oral communication asking questions related to the cards. For example, if a kid has the “dog” picture on his card,  we can ask him/her to describe his/her family dog.

Something that some of the older students have criticized of this activity in their evaluation is that they already knew most of the vocabulary. This is a very sensible review, and I think they are totally right. It's very important to adapt the activities to students’ knowledge because, otherwise, they will probably get bored soon.  

Anyway, doing this game has been a great experience and I’m sure that I will use it often in my lessons.