The Timeline ESL game is based on the card game of the same name, in which players try and put famous historical events in chronological order.



Setup
If you have the Internet and a projector, the easiest way to play is as a class, using our interactive Timeline game.
Otherwise, students play in small groups. For this you will need to prepare forty to fifty famous historical events, that each happened in a different year. Each event must be written on a separate piece of paper in the present simple, with the year underneath. You will need one copy of the full event set for each team of three to four students.
If playing the online game, divide the class into two to four teams. Project our game on the board.
If playing with events on paper, divide the students into groups of three or four. The group sits around a table, with each student in the group playing an individual team. Give each group a set of events, which are placed face down in the middle of the table.
Game
- Each team is dealt one random event to start their own timeline.
- Teams then take turns taking new events and attempting to place them in the correct place on their timeline. In our online game, deal a new event to each team, ask a student to read out the event as written, and give the teams a minute to discuss where they want to put their event. If playing in small groups with events on paper, students play one at a time, and a different student from the one playing should take an event from the top of the pile and read out only the event sentence (not the year).
- The team(s) attempts to place their new event in the correct position on their timeline. They must use the spoken target language to describe their move (the position of the new event relative to existing events) before they make it.
- If the events are in the correct chronological order, the played event remains where it is. If not, the event is discarded.
- The teams take turns taking new events and attempting to add the to their timeline. The team that makes a correct timeline of six events first is the winner. If all event cards are used before that, then the team with the longest timeline is the winner.
Target Language
In the Timeline ESL game, the students must use the target language correctly, or their move is not valid. You can use this game to practise the past simple (beginner and low intermediate) or past perfect simple (intermediate and advanced), as part of the main class or even as a review warmer.
If practising the past simple, students must say their event in the past simple before playing it, along with that of another event for reference. For example, I think the USA became independent after Columbus arrived in the Americas.
If practising the past perfect, students say their event in the past perfect simple, plus one/two others in past simple/perfect for reference. For example, I think the USA had become independent before the French Revolution happened, but Columbus had definitely arrived in the Americas earlier.
The Timeline ESL game could also work well as a cross-curricular activity with school-age kids. The students would prepare their own sets of events from their history class before playing.
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