Hey there! Do you like studying in the classroom? Not so much or not so sure, right? Do you like playing games, then? Of course! you do. How about a class where you get to play board games? Would you give it a chance? If yes then keep reading.
What's up hivers! How's everybody doing? I'm NomNomNoodle from Bangkok, Thailand. I've been a little busy with work so I haven't been posting this past week, but I just can't stay away for long, since I have so many stories to share with you guys. So, I'm back here today with a post about my English class. This time we went outside and decided to have a little extra fun with...
That's right! Board game baby! haha If you've ever read about my class before, you've probably noticed that I'm the kind of teacher, who's super energetic and always came up with some activity that could help you learn better and with a little bit spin of joy and fun!
That day our English class took place outside of our normal classroom. Our theme of the class today is "Hobby and leisure". As I took a survey around the class, 80% of the students said that they love playing games. But.. rather than have them just be on their phone playing, I decided to take them out to the place called "More Than a Game Café" at the open-air mall called "I'm Park"
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This is what it looked like inside. I borrowed the picture from a website, to show you how it is without people. That day was just crowded.
If you're interested, you can follow this map and the Google map location I attached there.
That day, I organized the board game field trip(?) for around 35 people. Me, my teacher assistant team, and the students. As we arrived there, I instructed them to form a group and play as many games as they liked. The only thing was that the games had to be in English and the group had to be some of the teacher assistants presented.
So, I'm gonna go through the games that I played with them, review some of the games and the ambient in the Board game cafe. Starts with the easy ones.
This game is about guessing the words, without saying the words and you win points, if you guess it first. I was surprised how the students knew so many English words.
And we played the most original board game of all time the "Monopoly", but this one is a little extra with the puzzle and a little spin of bluffing.
Another original "Uno", which I, myself, played very differently but the basic concept is to try to get the cards out of your hand as soon as possible, the last one with the cards is the loser.
This game is both English and mathematics. You have to guess the English words and the numbers of your friends. The good thing is the vocabulary was easy for kids and you get to race your competitors by ringing a bell to answer and get a point.
The last game that I wanna show you guys today is the hot air balloon game called "Celestia". The Idea of the game is Players ride an airship, taking turns to be the captain. Each round they'll draw cards which will be used to pay the toll.
The airship travels from one cloud city to the next. At each city, each player may individually decide to alight to score points or to stay on board, hoping to travel to the next city to score even more points.
So, each player needs to decide if the captain in that particular round has the right token to pay the price of that city. The captain (of that round) will ask "Do you trust me?" and the other players decide to abandon the ship or trust that the captain has enough cards to pay.
There are perils along the way. Each time the airship attempts to travel to the next higher city, dice are rolled to see what cards the current captain needs to play in order to arrive safely. If the captain fails to play such cards, the airship is forced to land, and everyone still on board scores no points. So this is a push-your-luck game.
The goal is to collect the coins from each city to a certain amount and you'll win. I find this game quite amusing to see them rely on their luck. Nice way to get them to speak English and learn about yes/no questions.
I have a few more games to show you in the next post and how my students enjoy it. That'll be for today's post guys and see you soon! so...
Stay fresh and keep learning, everybody!
Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜