Big numbers: Explanation

Big Number Game / Big Number Cards

• Details

Name of Item	Big Number Game / Cards
Activity Type	Presentation / Practice Game
Student Level	Low Intermediate - Intermediate
Time Allowance	20 minutes
Preparation Required	Copying "bignumbercards" onto card and cutting out - about 10 minutes per sheet.
Other Items Needed	Card or thick paper
Vocabulary	English system for naming large numbers
Grammar	Question patterns related to cost population

• Instructions

Surprisingly high level students have trouble putting numbers like "45,085,020" into words. This is partly because many other countries don't use our system of dividing digits into groups of threes (thousands / millions / billions).

The first sheet "Big Number Game" can be used to present these patterns in a fairly intuitive way (I think). The students read the verbal description of numbers and write the numerical equivalent alongside. This is not as difficult as it might at first seem, because the numbers are listed in ascending order and one extra digit is added at a time so that there are two or three numbers "of a certain length" followed by two or three numbers with one more digit ... and so on. In some places I've tried to include pairs of numbers that presented listening / pronunciation problems for my students. You may or may not want to focus on this.

Students can compare their answers when they've finished but it's also a good idea to check them as a whole group to make absolutely sure they've got them correct. It may be a good idea to ask the class to use pencils to write their initial answers if you think they are going to make many mistakes.

The cards contain exactly the same numbers as the sheet. They can be used in two ways and both are best achieved with students in pairs. Firstly, for basic practice, one student presents each card in turn to his partner who has to identify it in words as quickly as possible. If you have a competitive group, you might want to do this as a race.

Once they are getting quite confident, it's time to move on to the second game. For this, you will need to return briefly to the work-sheet to complete the gapped sentences, and practice them a few times. Once these are being reliably produced, you can demonstrate / explain the game.

Again, in pairs, one student takes a card and hides it from the partner. The student with the card then asks the other student questions to try to make her / him say the number on the card (i.e. he / she is trying to elicit the number or on the card). Once everybody has understood what they have to do, the various pairs can proceed through their pack of 21 cards. If you want to add a competitive element, you could make it a race to see which partnership can finish first.