A cute point and click game with a graded reader for pre-intermediate learners.
Location: Computer room
Skills focus: Reading
Game: Bamba Snack Quest
A squirrel steals your crisps. Bamba decides to go and get his crisps back but the ending might be a little different to what your learners predict . . .
You need to get your learners to open two internet explorer pages:
As most of the language problems are to do with the vocabulary you may like your learners to either use an online dictionary OR use an image search engine to teach the vocabulary. If you use the latter then you should set the filters on strict in the advanced search options to avoid embarrassingly inappropriate images appearing. This is how you set a strict filter in google images. REMEMBER your learners will need to use three internet explorer windows for the game, the walkthrough, dictionary/images.
- Instruct your learners in how to open three internet explorer windows.
- Get them to open the game in the first one.
- Get them to open the walkthrough in the second one
- Get them to use an online dictionary or images (on strict filter) in the third one.
- Learners read the walkthrough to complete the game.
- Stop the activity when you see fit.
Post Play Activity
The walkthrough is graded but contains a lot of repetitive use of the zero conditional and some of the 1st conditional. The zero conditional really just expresses the fact that if you do something in the game the result is always the same. The 1st conditional is present when the game requires the player to complete a task that is difficult to complete and in this way uses ‘will’ to predict the eventual outcome in the game. For this reason, the walkthrough language offers you the opportunity to focus on these two conditional forms. You can either do this by:
- making a worksheet based on the walkthrough
- using a relevant section in the coursebook
- eliciting the form in a connected walkthrough while playing the first screen of the game.
Learners find the last activity very enjoyable and there is the option of either doing it orally in open class or by putting learners in pairs to write each stage of the walkthrough. This last one is good as having played the game there is a memory test aspect to it that learners respond to well. You can either feedback after each sentence or wait until the whole screen of the game has been completed.