Bingo

Today I will be sharing a way to play bingo with our students in class using Gemini. Although this game is ideal for lowel levels, it can also be adapted across all levels. As you will see, this tweaked version has more to do with a listening exercise that goes beyond simply identifying words on a bingo card.

As with any other activity in this section in the blog, we can run it live in front of the class without prior material preparation. However, it helps if we have previously typed a list of words –or better still, the whole prompt- to quickly copy and paste into Gemini.

Let’s try a game of bingo with countries for A1 students of English. After we have done some preliminary work with countries and nationalities and drilled pronunciation, we can display a list of those countries on the board. Students can pick any six countries and write them down on piece of paper. The first student to cross out all the countries on their paper wins.

So we will be asking Gemini to generate three clues for the students to guess the country, and if they wrote it down, they can cross it out.

Here is the prompt: Here is a list of countries: the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, China, Russia, Spain, France, the UK, Ireland, Nigeria, India, Japan, South Africa, Morocco, Germany, Italy, Portugal. I will be playing bingo with my class of Elementary English students. Each time I type ‘ok’, I want you to choose any country from the list and provide three clues for my students to guess the country. The clues could be any of the following: the capital city, a typical dish, the primary language, flag colours, a famous landmark, or a famous person from that country. Choose a different country randomly each time. Do not provide the name of the country, just the three clues.

We can let the students see the board at the front so that they can read what’s on it, or for a more challenging version, hide the screen view and have students listen. Gemini has an audio icon to the right of each generated text, and if clicked, it will provide a spoken version of it.

– Clue 1: This country is known for its delicious pizza and pasta.

– Clue 2: The leaning tower of Pisa is a famous landmark here.

– Clue 3: The primary language spoken here is Italian.

– Clue 1: This country is famous for its vibrant carnivals, especially in Rio de Janeiro.

– Clue 2: The Amazon rainforest is largely located within this country.

– Clue 3: The official language is Portuguese.

– Clue 1: This country is home to the Great Wall, one of the most impressive ancient structures in the world.

– Clue 2: A popular dish from this country is dumplings.

– Clue 3: The official language is Mandarin Chinese.

Connected speech and natural speed are two hurdles to consider here for absolute beginners. However, students should be able to pick up a range of isolated words that make each country identifiable (pizza, pasta, Pisa, Italian, carnivals, Rio de Janeiro, Amazon, Portuguese…). We can always repeat the sentences slowly to help them. At any rate, it’s an added bonus for them to hear the stream of sound and just be exposed to it.

Next, I just tried ‘means of transport’. We can simply prompt Gemini to provide three clues without specifying what types of clues they may be.

Prompt: Here’s a list of means of transport: car, bus, train, bicycle, plane, boat, ship, motorcycle, scooter, taxi, tram, underground, helicopter, truck, van, skateboard, rocket. I want to play a guessing game with my elementary English students. Every time I type ‘ok’, I want you to choose any of those words and provide 3 clues for them to guess the word. Choose a different word randomly each time. Do not provide the word, just the three clues.

– Clue 1: This is a small vehicle with two wheels.

– Clue 2: You need a helmet to ride it safely.

– Clue 3: It can be fun to do tricks on it.

– Clue 1: This is a large vehicle that travels on water.

– Clue 2: It can carry many people and cargo.

– Clue 3: It is often used for long journeys across the ocean.

– Clue 1: This is a vehicle that can fly.

– Clue 2: It has wings and a powerful engine.

– Clue 3: It is often used for long-distance travel.

Here we coud play each set of clues twice and mime certain words as the sentences are read aloud (e.g., small, helmet, wheels, do tricks) for added interaction and fun. When a student calls out bingo, we could ask them to, instead of calling the actual words, try to recall some of the clues given for the words. We can help them out during the process.

I see this Gen.AI-assisted bingo as an inclusive task because, in addition to the actual practice of the target vocabulary, we are pushing more advanced students within the A1-A2 levels out of their comfort zone by providing opportunities for listening at natural speed, exposure to additional vocabulary and even speaking.

I also tried this prompt for bingo with small everyday objects. These are two example sets of clues.

– Clue 1: This is a small, rectangular object that you use to charge your phone.

– Clue 2: You plug it into an electrical outlet.

– Clue 3: It usually has a cable that connects to your phone.

– Clue 1: This is something you use to protect your eyes from the sun.

– Clue 2: They often have dark lenses.

– Clue 3: You can wear them at the beach or when you go outside on a sunny day.

Again, the spoken language will be way beyond most students’ reach at this level, but they can always identify certain words and can repeat and mime the sentences for them. There are always new words and collocations to learn, along with the grammar that goes with them (e.g., plug into an outlet, connect to your phone, wear at the beach, on a sunny day).

What’s more, based on the sentences we can see on the screen, we could think of questions to ask the class once we have played a round or two of bingo: “What can you plug into an outlet?”, “What do you use to protect your head from the sun?”, “What do you wear at the beach?”, “What do you take to the beach?”, “What can you do on a sunny day?”

Other possible lexical sets for this language level may be animals, food, household items, clothes, places in town, jobs, sports, daily actions.

For intermediate levels we can try: house chores, things people do on a plane/on holiday/in an office/in the park, etc., health problems, ways of preparing food, money related nouns and verbs.

For advanced levels we could focus on any language items we would like to revise, or more specifically, phrasal verbs, idioms, or binomial expressions.