What's That Sound?
I found an educational game for children called "What's That Sound?" (sorry, I don't have it here, and can't remember the manufacturer) and I adapted it for my ESL classes. It can be used on any level, for many purposes. It consis ts of a tape of sounds, and four boards of pictures of the things that make those sounds. When the tape is played, the student puts a colored chip on the picture of the sound maker on his board. The game can be played like BINGO, with the winner being the first one to fill in the card. There are only 36 sounds on the tape, but they are played in random order, twice on each side of the tape. You can photocopy the cards, and use pennies for markers, if you need more than the four cards. I made a master list for me, so that I always know what sound is coming next. I can stop the tape and talk about the sound, or the spelling of the word, or to make sentences, or even to chat about the topic. I also make lists of the words for the pic tures and the sounds, as well as related words the students might use to make sentences about the topics. At the end of the lesson they can take the lists and the pictures and the sentences and any other additions they made, home with them for study. It is a very flexible 'game' and can be used as a jump start by more advanced students for writing paragraphs or short stories . Often, since the sound of thunder, or the roar of an elephant, etc. is common to all of the students, even those very defici ent in language skills can relate to the sounds and they make a good basis for remembering the vocabulary. I am now in the process of collecting more sounds and pictures to go with them to use with 'themes'. I am hoping that someday (perhaps on this web page) there will be a database of sounds and public domain pictures that we can all use in class, adapting them to our specific needs and lessons.
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