Creating a hidden object game for the language classroom.

I love hidden object games.

I believe they are a wonderful way to keep students engaged while learning / testing new vocabulary. Unfortunately there aren’t any French hidden object games (at least not for beginners / intermediate level classrooms) and not any that use specialised word families like the ones we love to use in the language classroom. So I decided to create my own hidden object games in French using Powerpoint. It is easy, fast, effective and you don’t need to be Powerpoint superheroes to make it happen!

If your students have their own laptops/ tablets with them during class,you will find that, apart from a great team activity, this hidden object game can also be used as a way to keep early-finishers busy and working on their laptops.

So, how we do it?

First of all, the

Game Objective:

Students have to find the hidden objects in the image based on the foreign language words provided next to game scene. When they find an object, they should click on it and the object moves next to the word describing it. The game is over when all hidden objects are found.

Today’s hidden object game has to do with school objects i.e. objects we use in classroom: books, pens, rulers, sharpeners etc.

First, let’s create the game schene: the ideal choise is to use a classroom as the background for my game.

• Open Powerpoint and Insert> Online picture.
• Search for something as “classroom” (in this case) and choose something colorful with many objects inside.

This is the 1st rule when working with hidden object games: Colorful and busy backgrounds!

Then, you decide which objects you are going to place in the picture.  These are the words you want to teach or revise.

• Create a colorful list next to the picture:  Design > Format Background > Solid Fill > Choose color (I chose Gold).
• Resize your background image to leave some space for your list to be placed on the right side of the image.
• Now the list: “Insert text” and write as a list the words you want to teach.
• You can also Insert>Shapes and choose a square shape to create nice “buttons” to place your words in. Just create one button and copy – paste it several times. You can also “Group” the button with the word to make them a unique body easier to move around: Format > Group > Ctrl + Click your text first and then the button shape.
• Now, insert the pictures of the objects that you want to teach using the same way as with the background:  Insert> Online pictures.

You can also place pictures already saved in your computer.

• Resize them and drag wherever you ant in the picture.
• Sometimes, pictures come with a default background, so you may need to “Remove the Background” of the items you enter  (Picture Tools > Format > Remove background)  in order to integrate them better to the new background.

You can place them randomly but it is better to try to find places to “hide” your objects in your pictures, on/next to a similar colour part of your background image: we don’t want to make them too obvious and easy to be found!

Can you see the objects I put in this picture?

Now, it’s time to create the “game” part.

• We animate the objects using the “Motion Paths” from the Animations menu (you can decide the shape of the path you prefer). This way, we connect our images to the describing words with a motion and everytime we click on an object, it moves and “sits” next to the relevant word.

Remember to Trigger correctly: “On Click” of the designated image, the Animation triggers and your Object follows a path to be placed next to the appropriate word.  If you manage to do this with one picture, you can then use the “Animation painter” to apply the same effect to all your pictures. Then you only need to customize the path towards the proper word for each item.

The only problem now is that if a student clicks accidentaly on the background of the slide and not on an object, the slide ends automatically (by default in Powerpoint). What you can do to prevent this is to animate also the background. I think that the best solution for that is to use the Animation “Teeter” with the background: that means that the background “shakes”, letting the student know that he clicked on the wrong thing.  For this last animation remember to click “Rewind when done playing” on the “Effect Options” in order to make the background shake everytime the student accidentaly clicks on it.

Another idea is to add a “failure” sound on this effect.

You can find below my Powerpoint hidden object game and check how it is made. Hope you’ll like it.  If you also teach School Objects this week, you can just edit the French words and add the words in the language that you teach!

Hidden Object_School Objects

I think it can also work well with more advanced levels if we want, for example, to focus on vocabulary that is useful and common but rarely taught in the classroom. I am working on that and there will be more in a future post!

Video: Asterix and Cleopatre: tenses practise

Wonderful video to practice verbs, actions and tenses in French. I created a worksheet to practise Futur Simple in French, but it can be also used to practise other tenses like Présent or Passé Composé . Students watch the video, complete the verbs in sentences given and describe what will happen (or happens or happened)  in this super funny video.

You can download the worksheet here: lebaindecleopatre_worksheet

Balloon Tennis!

This is a wonderful idea I came across yesterday as I was looking for a game to practise food vocabulary.

Balloon Tennis!

 The idea is pretty simple: We stick two plastic spoons to the back of two plastic plates to create two funny-looking rackets.  As a ball, we use a balloon.  Students can play tennis with their rackets, but under a rule: every time a student hits the ball, he/she has to come up with a word from the group of words you want to revise to get a point. For example, if your lesson was about food vocabulary he/she has to say a food name.  If the student hits the balloon without managing to find a word he/she gets no marks.

Maybe you will find ways to use this game beyond vocabulary revision.  Have fun!

Funny game to revise vocabulary: suitable for all languages.

This is a video found by accident but what a gem!  It presents a really funny game suitable for all language classrooms and levels.

It is ideal for vocabulary revision, especially nouns + adjectives.  It demands some preparation with the flashcards and the board – I still haven’t found a way to create magnet flashcards that can be customized so I think that something like big post-its could do the job.

Can’t wait to use it in my next class!

Practise grammar with plastic cups

I came across this game in an ESL blog. The idea was to practise simple past and present perfect while playing with plastic cups: you divide students in 2 (or more) teams. You write an irregular verb on each cup (e.g. go). Students have to remember and say the two additional forms (i.e. went, gone) of the verbs in order to win the cup and stack it on the tower.  Naturally, the highest tower wins!

Of course you can use it in every language classroom. I can think for example a pretty similar use in the German language classroom.  In French there is only one past form that students need to remember (participe passé) so -in order to make the game more challenging- you could demand the whole passé composé of the verb as the right answer (e.g. you put “aller” on the cup and students should come up with “je suis allé” in order to win.  To make things more demanding with older students you can put other tenses or forms in the game. For example you can write some common french irregular verbs on cups and ask for the imparfait and the futur (or subjonctif – imperatif e.t.c)

You can even place more than one words on cups. Then students should create sentences to win (e.g: hier/aller/École:  “Hier, Je suis allé à l’école!”

If you stick images on cups you can even practise vocabulary, there are so many possibilities with this game

If the students knock the tower down they have to start over!

 Of course you can think of your own rules to make the game easier, harder or less noisy!  Good luck!