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      Giving Directions to the Pacman
      Submitted by bsanja on 30 January, 2012 - 12:12

      Today I'm teaching giving directions. My students are 13 years old. I have prepared a listening task accompanied with a city map.

      The vocabulary of giving and asking for directions is not completely new to them., they  need to practice using it. After a listening comprehension task and reviewing the vocabulary of directions, I plan to use the  city map for  some role-play in pairs.

       

      My problem is that half the class are students who will believe they really don't need that practice, which is not true. I have to motivate all the students to work hard on the role-play.

       

      My plan today is to reward those whose dialogues are voted the best – the pairs of students will get to play The Pacman game (http://www.thepcmanwebsite.com/media/pacman_flash/ ), one student giving directions and the other moving the arrow keys. It is a flash game, over in a minute or so. Students will have to shout directions really quickly and I imagine that will the the challenge they need.

       

       What do you think? Can playing that game be called learning directions? Do you expect my students to benefit? Will weaker students want to join even if it means learning the vocabulary in a very short time? I'm willing to try  and use well or waste 15 minutes of my lesson.

      You can read  about how it went in the comments area. I'd love to hear your guesses and opinions.

       

       

       

       

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      dxplorer's picture
      dxplorer
      interesting idea
      Submitted on 30 January, 2012 - 20:09

      This sounds treally energizing. I wonder how it went! :)

      gildanie94's picture
      gildanie94
      Thanks, bsanja. What a cool
      Submitted on 31 January, 2012 - 03:07

      Thanks, bsanja. What a cool activity! BTW I always wondered how do you catch the eyes? (of the monsters)

      bsanja's picture
      bsanja
      Re: Catching the monsters
      Submitted on 31 January, 2012 - 09:10

      I had tried playing the game before the lesson, but I must admit my score would have been the worst, so I didn't mention it in class :)

      bsanja's picture
      bsanja
      How it went
      Submitted on 31 January, 2012 - 09:19

      The students were very enthusiastic, some remembered the game and said they had played it a long time ago.

      I had to be careful about two things:

      • pairing up students: the game is too fast for weak students to get the role to shout directions;
      • disqualified teams: the rules were that if they speak Croatian or if they move before hearing the direction, they are disqualified.

      All students wanted to play. I think it went well.

      dxplorer's picture
      dxplorer
      Thanks for the tips!! :))
      Submitted on 31 January, 2012 - 21:36

      Thanks for the tips!! :))