Crazy Long Board – How long have you played badminton?

Subject

Present Perfect: Continuous (Question, Response, How long have you…?) – How long have you lived in Japan?

Preparation

Print the game board out and have everyone use their erasers as game pieces. Also, cut out the cards and either apply color backing or make an origami box and fold the cards into the box.

Description

Sample Dialogue:

A: How long have you played badminton?

B: I have played badminton for 5 years.

move 5 spaces.

B: How long have you eaten rice?

C: I have eaten rice for 14 years

move 14 spaces.

C: How long have you listened to TWICE?

Smarty pants D: I have listened to TWICE for 60 days!

move 60 spaces.

I’m hoping the above dialogue will give the concept of what to do with the game. The idea is having one student ask the person on their left/right a question and the student giving a number answer that they will then move their game piece in reference to. Both using the target language of the perfect present continuous question.

The board itself contains 107 squares, 25 traps and 2 help points.

The -10 red dot is to return 10 spaces.

The green arrow allows you to bypass a good portion of the board.

The yellow circle with arrows can mean one of two things. The easiest meaning reverse the order in which the students ask questions, clockwise is now counterclockwise. Or… my version was that all game pieces are rotated to a different persons position on the board. For example: If player A is at the start, player B is half way, and player C is near the finish. If one lands on the yellow circle with arrows, suddenly everyone shifts positions in a circular manner. Player A is now half way, player B is near the finish and player C is at start. I implemented this in hopes to curtail the players yelling out large numbers and gaming the system to their own benefit.

What I found interesting about the classes I used it in, was that the students tended to stick with “for ~ years.” Even when I gave them the idea of months, days, hours and seconds.

I almost forgot to mention, each cards’ verb has not been changed to fit the passive tense grammar point. The students will need to change them, such as “play video games” to “played video games”. How long have you played video games?.