Grammar games - Teacher’s Notes
In Glug anns an Taigh pupils will have some fun as they reinforce their Gaelic grammar.
Although primarily targeted at S1/2 Gaelic learners, there is a dual language option for instructions so the game can be used for Gaelic medium pupils at whatever level teachers deem appropriate. Screen buttons and encouragement are in Gaelic.
Pupils can choose whole game mode or enter the six activities individually. They are given a score for each activity.
Five activities ask pupils to complete a sentence by dropping their selection on top of the sentence. One asks them to sort out a jumbled sentence by dragging the words in order into the answer box. When a sentence is completed correctly pupils hear the audio for the sentence.
Pupils can see a translation of the sentence to be filled, after some seconds delay.
Each time an activity is accessed sentences are selected randomly from an extensive bank.
The story
Some students from Quaoar are doing research on other planets and the one who does the best report will get a cool new spaceship. Glug has chosen Earth as he has a distant relative here, Tony. Tony’s great great grandfather left Quaoar many years ago and the setting for the games is Tony’s house.
The games and grammar points addressed are as follows:
Cleasan Cidsin
Noun with article in nominative and prepositional cases
Pupils are given time to explore the kitchen, using the arrow keys to look about. When they click on an object, they hear what it is and its name appears on screen. Some objects such as the taps and blinds animate.
To begin the questions pupils click on Tòisich Ceistean. Glug, the alien, directs his laser at an object in the kitchen and pupils complete a sentence about that object by selecting the correct noun with article and dropping it on the sentence. Sentences state the colour of the object or its position, and there are six sentences to complete.
Càite bheil e?
Simple prepositions anns / aig / air and compound prepositions os cionn / air beulaibh / ri taobh
As with the kitchen, pupils are given time to explore the bathroom, which has animations, and are given vocabulary and audio for bathroom items and furniture. They are then prompted to click on Tòisich Ceistean.
Glug’s space-ship lands in six different positions in the bathroom and pupils complete six sentences saying where it is, by selecting the correct preposition from anns/aig/air or from os cionn/air beulaibh/ ri taobh. Although not part of the S1/2 syllabus, compound prepositions are included to make use of the medium to introduce this structure.
In the construction of the activity the prepositions have been used as follows:
Air – the spaceship touches the top surface of the object
Anns - the spaceship is in the object
Aig - the spaceship is near the object but not touching it
Os cionn - the spaceship is above the object
Ri taobh - the spaceship is either to the right or the left of the object
Air beulaibh - the spaceship is in front of the object, not to the left or right
The translation option will settle any possible debate about the preposition required.
Sùil air Saor-làithean
Future tense, commands, prepositional pronouns
The scene moves to the livingroom where we meet Tony. As part of Glug’s research a holiday is planned. Pupils complete sentences in a holiday brochure. There are three pages with four sentences on each page, one page each for future tense of regular and common irregular verbs, for commands and for prepositional pronouns.
Seo Sinne
Attributive and predicative adjectives, and correct responses to A bheil? An robh? An e?
Having returned from holiday, six digital holiday snaps are displayed on the TV in the sitting room. For each photo pupils are asked either to select the correct adjective form to complete a sentence, or to answer a question using Tha/Bha/Chan eil/Cha robh /’S e/Chan e.
Abair Spòrs!
Word order
Pupils view a clip from the holiday video and are given four jumbled sentences to sort out. Beginning at the first word in the sentence they must drag the words in order into the answer box. To undo the last move they click Dubh Às. They can undo as many words as they wish. Once they have put all the words into the answer box it is counted as their first attempt.
They can watch the video again by clicking on the camera. They must sort out the sentence to proceed in the game but can have as many attempts as necessary. There is a twenty second delay in the translation option.
Tioraidh!
One-word past tense, regular and common irregular verbs
A postcard from their holiday destination arrives but some of the writing is smudged. Pupils have to select the appropriate verb for each section of text. As the seven sections are completed the text appears on the postcard.
The full bank of sentences for each game is available on the gàidhlig air-loidhne website.
The website also has an introductory page entitled Mus tòisich thu containing a list of words with which pupils should be familiar before they play.