Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to share a fun activity I created back in 2003 to help my students with conjugation. Almost everyone has heard of and/or played the strategy game of Battleship. Originally, Battleship was actually a pen and paper guessing game. I decided to take that approach when I adapted it for verb conjugation. The pronouns go across the top of the grid while either the teacher or the class chooses a set of nine verbs which will be used. The game is flexible in that you can target specific groups of verbs, such as separable prefix verbs in German, irregular verbs, or even different tenses, depending on where the current focus in your courses.
Each student receives a copy of this sheet (to save time) or you can draw this example on the board and have students copy it on their own if time is not an issue. As it would be impractical to have your students use the little plastic ships and hit markers of the board game, students will mark the location of their ships with Xs as is indicated at the bottom of the template. Each X represents one square on the grid. The number indicates how many of each ship a student has. Students should place their ships in the bottom grid and ships may only be placed either vertically or horizontally. Students will guess where their opponent's ships are in the upper grid.
In order to make a guess a student must pick a verb and then conjugate it by choosing one of the pronouns. If the guess is correctly conjugate the opposing student will either say hit (Treffer! in German) or miss (Daneben!) or sunk (Versunken!). If the guess is incorrect the opposing student should provide the correct answer and may then take their turn. Students should alternate after each guess. The teacher should circulate among the students to make sure students are only providing information for correct conjugations and to help students with any questions that may arise. Students should keep track of their guesses as well as their opponent's guesses in some reliable manner (generally just drawing a small circle works).
As an added challenge teachers could require students to form an entire sentence with the conjugate verb.
The game can be a bit time consuming the first few times you use it in class. It definitely saves time to print of the sheets for the students beforehand. The game will also easily work for most other languages and I will add a blank template for others to use as well. Feel free to download the picture and print it off for your own use.
This game is for purely educational purposes and no infringement of any kind is intended of Milton Bradley's rights to Battleship.
Posts
