Collocations; Card Game: Explanation

Collocations; Card Game

• Details

Name of Item	Collocations Game
Activity Type	Collaborative Learning Game
Student Level	Intermediate - Advanced
Time Allowance	15 -30 minutes
Preparation Required	copying worksheets onto card and cutting up individual cards - 10 minutes per sheet
Other Items Needed	Coloured card of two colours/ scissors
Vocabulary	words on cards a fairly basic
Grammar	some notion of the "random" nature of English collocations

• Instructions

This is quite a complicated game to explain but when you do it, it is actually quite simple to pick up and rewarding if the students get involved enough to challenge each other without prompting from you.

First of all, it is very important that the cards are copied onto two clearly different colours of card - say pink and blue. For each complete game set, you will need two copies of sheet one (verbs) on one colour, and one copy each of sheets 2 and 3 copied onto a different colour (collocation cards). One game set is good for up to six players but I would say the optimum number is four. If you have a large class, this could require quite a lot of preparation time so beware!.

In each group, cards are dealt out to each player so that everybody has three "verb cards" and three "collocation cards". The students' cards are placed face up on the table for all to see clearly. the remaining cards are placed face down in the middle of the table. the general pattern of play is that a given player will put her / his cards into the centre to match the uppermost card on a third central pile.

To start, one verb card (say "BE") is placed face up in the middle. One player is invited to start. He / she will place any collocation card that matches above this (e.g. "Cold"). If this player has no card that matches, she / he will have to pick up one card from the centre and miss a turn, thus increasing his / her total number of cards. If the FIRST player then has a further card that matches "Cold" (for example "Get") this can also be added in the same turn. In this way, a player can put down several cards in one go.

Very occasionally a player will dispose of all six cards before the allotted time is up, but this has only happened once to me in many occurrences of the game. if it does happen to your class, you could invite that student to start again with a new set of six cards.

From an English teaching point of view, it is very important that students challenge each other over the feasibility of any "dodgy" collocations. You may want to establish a rule that a valid sentence must be produced containing the collocation in question, for that turn to proceed.

This game may be a lot of effort to construct in the first place, but you can use it again and again - even with the same group.