Target Language: Practise spelling, vocabulary & grammar

Target Language is a quiz format that encourages students to practise and review the vocabulary and grammar of a course.

The reason for creating this new PowerPoint quiz format was to have some variety. Rather than simply playing Jeopardy or using a class quiz, why not play a game where students get points for hitting the target and for practising the target language of the lesson/course.

Watch the tutorial below to see how to edit and use the PowerPoint template.

Video tutorial demonstrating how to edit and use the Target Language PowerPoint.
The video run-time is 2 minutes and 37 seconds.

Click on the image or follow the link below to download the Target Language PowerPoint.

Download the Target Language PowerPoint.

The template has a menu slide with twenty-eight targets that link to twenty-eight question slides. Once a target has been selected and the question has been answered, the selected target will disappear. This helps to keep track of the questions that have already been chosen.

Using the template

• Open the template.
• There are 30 slides in total.
  • The title slide.
  • The menu slide.
  • 28 question slides.
• Add your own questions and answers to the template.
  • Try a letter-scramble question where the students rearrange the letters to find the answer.
  • Try missing letter questions where the students try to guess the answer.
  • Try using questions based on antonyms where the students have the guess the opposite word.
  • Try gap fill questions where the students try to guess the missing word(s) to complete the sentence.
  • Try clue or prompt questions where the students have to guess the target vocabulary from the clue provided
  • Try challenge questions where the students have to create their own sentence using the target vocabulary.
• When all 28 questions have been written, you are ready to play.
• Go to the slideshow ribbon.
• And start the presentation from [the] beginning. (F5)
• The title screen appears. Left-click on the mouse to go to the menu slide.
• Ask the students to choose one of the twenty-eight targets.
• If you click on target one, you will go to question one.
• Give the students some time to answer the question. You may want to set a time limit.
• Once the students have answered, click anywhere on the slide to reveal the answer and see if they are correct.
• Click on the back button to return to the menu slide.
  • A dart appears and hits target one. The target will disappear leaving the dart in place.
  • This is to indicate that the question has been previously chosen and answered.
• Repeat until all questions have been answered or until the previously decided time limit is up.
• That’s it! Enjoy playing ‘target language.’

How to play

• Divide your class into teams of 4-6 students.
• Randomly choose the starting team.
• Ask the starting team to choose a target.
• Introduce the question.
• All teams are free to answer the question.
  • If a team answers the question correctly, they get to choose the next question.
  • If a team answers the question incorrectly, the question is open again and any team can try to answer.

Variations

Try using different color targets to represent different categories. For example, spelling, vocabulary, or grammar.

Alternatively, try playing Target Language on the whiteboard.

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Busyteacher.org wrote a post about what you can do with a whiteboard. Look for their description of a game using a suction cup ball.

Genki.net has a list of several games. One of these games is called Space Invaders. A ball is thrown at the black/white board to hit aliens and earn different points. Whatever is hit is then erased from the board.

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There are two ways to play target games on the whiteboard. Either draw a single target with different points for different sections or draw 28 different circles. Each circle is linked to a unique question. The students throw a ball to select a question. Once that question is answered, the circle can be erased from the board.

What you need:
A white board
Whiteboard markers
A ball (a soft ball / a suction cup ball)

Before playing the game, you will need to prepare a list of 28 questions.

• Draw 28 circles on the white or black board.
• Divide your class into teams of 4-6 students.
• Randomly choose the starting team.
• Ask the starting team to choose a target by throwing the ball at the board.
• Watch the board to see where the ball lands/sticks.
• If the ball lands/sticks on target one, ask the question associated to that target.
• All teams are free to answer the question.
  • If a team answers the question correctly, they get to throw the ball again and choose the next question.
  • If a team answers the question incorrectly, the question is open again and any team can try to answer. The team that answers correctly, takes the ball and throws it to select the next question.
• Once each question has been answered, erase the circle from the board. This helps to keep track of the questions that have already been chosen.

 

Do you have any suggestions for playing Target Language?

Please leave a comment if you have any ideas you would like to share or if you have any questions about the template.

Alternatively you can send me a message on my Facebook page or on Twitter.

Thanks for reading and take care!

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You may also like to read:

Bullseye was one of the games that appear in the post ’10 PowerPoint Games.’ I created the bullseye template as a variation from the grid layout used in other PowerPoint games. The design of the board is similar to Jeopardy in that there are different points awarded for each section of the board.

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‘Target Language’ was designed with Microsoft PowerPoint 2016. Animations and sounds may differ when opened in other presentation software.

Microsoft® Office® is a copyrighted product of the Microsoft® corporation. All media that accompanies ‘Target Language’ is for educational purposes only.

The template and images in this post are free to download but they are intended for educational purposes only.