French Battleships
The theme of gaming in the classroom has sparked an incredible amount of thinking and excitement. In the midst of the elation and thoughtful pondering (redundant<?), I realized that I am experiencing exactly the type of reaction that we are hoping to generate in our students. I would be ecstatic if even one my my students felt inspired to think of different ways that my lesson could be utilized in his or her future life. Cultivating an exciting atmosphere where students are engaged and motivated to participate is something to which I am committed. I also feel that this can be achieved by implementing activities much like the one we experienced in our class today. Here is one idea I have for integrating a gaming approach to my french lesson:
Anyone remember playing this? Well get ready. Because Mr. Wilson is about to tell you how the game of Battleship and the French language meet in open waters.
The idea I have for the lesson is to utilize the existing basic strategies used in the game battleship. In case you are unaware of the game, here is a link to the basic rules and objectives:
The twist for my french lesson is to use subjects in place of the rows and verbs in place of the columns. In order for a successful guess or "missile launch", students will need to correctly conjugate the verb according to the specific subject. The game will then be played out much like the regular version. Of course, this is also an opportunity to teach the students about nautical vocabulary and perhaps a history lesson on the usage of naval vessels in World War II. I am not aware of any program that is capable of performing this task online, but I have learned anything in this education with technology course, it is that the possibilities are endless with what we, as teachers, have at our disposal to enhance our classroom instruction. This transition period, as it has been labeled, offers us a chance to take risks and tap into resources that would be otherwise impossible without the use of technology and games.
This sounds like a really cool idea that incorporates both vocabulary and culture! I wrote in another world language blog, that I think you guys get to be pretty creative when it comes to implementing certain things like games into the classroom since you do cover basic topics like vocabulary. I wonder if you could also incorporate a writing task with this game. Like having the students write about their strategies for the game and where they placed their battleships. I don't really know what level French that would be, but it might be interesting to try and incorporate writing somehow!
ReplyDeleteMr. Wilson I love your idea of incorporating your discipline of French into the classic game of Battleship. I think whenever you can disguise learning and make it fun the students will really run with it. Having a sat in a few French classes during my academic career I can attest that this would be a great way to learn French. I wish my various French instructors would have used a game like this to help me learn my verbs and their forms more concretely.
ReplyDeleteBonne stuff, mon frere. I really dig that your application of one of the best games of all of time and space treats both cultural knowledge (nautical and historical concepts and vocab) and the skills of the language. I had been racking my brain for a turn-based game in which the qualification for taking a turn could be decided by the exertion of skill (like Trivial Pursuit, where getting a question right results in a continuation of the turn), but couldn't quite find one like this. Checkers? Nope. Connect four? Eh. But Battleship really fits the bill. I think it's also significant that Battleship isn't an educational game, in and of itself -- it's a game that's fun to play already, and so the ability to take a turn is a solid reward for a successful demonstration of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the sweet-o thoughts -- I'll keep this one in mind.
Matt
__The first thing that comes to mind is what you want your students to be thinking about. Since conjugation, verb forms, subject words,pronunciation, and hearing carefully are important for languages, they should be thinking of French as the medium to play. My only issue is that this may divorce the words of their meaning and sentence context, which may not be too important for early French learners trying to cut their teeth on these many new skills. Maybe requiring the enemy to confirm the target cell in English would practice that.
ReplyDelete__Like you said, this is our turn to explore with low risk. Even though there is so much we have to learn, trying it out now can give us the confidence to try it later and better.
Thanks for the ideas,
Nate
During the course of reading your blog about battleship, I was distracted by the subliminal imagery in the background. A golf course, no doubt! So I began to wonder how one could incorporate your won passions, which seem to be centered around golf, and teaching French. Perhaps you could develop a unit on golfing, not necessarily the techniques, but the vocabulary. For example, you could have students learn verbs such as "to swing," "to hit," "to try," "to drive," and so forth. You could also teach them a thing or two about keeping track of their scores - that is, how to count in French. You could also teach them about the lay of the land, about typography (lakes, water hazards, sand, trees, grass, etc) - all in French, of course.
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