Fruit Preferences BINGO

About This Activity

Overview

Fruit Preferences BINGO is a great way for English beginners to build their listening skills (and potentially their basic speaking abilities) with a fun, social activity.

Students can be introduced to this game after memorizing as few as 16 vocabulary words.

Currently, 80 different BINGO cards are available for the Fruit Preferences topic, each with a different random distribution of the topic's key word Vocabulary Icons.

Although not designed as a communication activity that necessitates back-and-forth English communication for English learners, the vocabulary and sentence patterns used for this activity overlap with the speaking content used in a variety of our available task-based language teaching (TBLT) activities.

In addition to providing an opportunity to vocabulary recognition practice, this activity is also VERY useful for phonics encoding practice (see notes below).

Activity Presentation Phase Instructions

BINGO Card Example

1 of the 80 Available
Fruit BINGO Cards

Cue Cards Example

Cue Cards For Use
By the BINGO Caller

Fruit Preference Cards Example

Fruit Preferences
Character Cards

Download Game Materials

Preparation Instructions

Printing

Simply print the needed amount of BINGO cards on normal white printer paper. To save paper, you may wish to print double-sided.

There are a total of 80 unique BINGO cards available. This ensures that it is unlikely that two participants frequently will score a BINGO at the same time.

The accompanying Cue Cards and Fruit Preferences Character Cards (referred to as Character Cards in the following instructions) will also be needed to play this BINGO game. These can be printed and prepared according to the instructions found on this page.

Activity Set-Up Instructions

Preparation (One-Time Use)

After printing, you may simple use the cards as is. However, this means that each one will only be able to be used for a single round of BINGO. For learners 6 and younger, this is preferable.

Preparation (Re-Usable)

To make the BINGO cards re-usable, laminate them and then have game participants use erasable whiteboard markers to write on the cards.

After each round of play, the writing can be erased and the cards re-used.

To save money and conserve resources, print the BINGO cards double-sided, as this will reduce the lamination needed by 50%.

Note: It is not recommended that re-usable cards be provided to learners 6 and younger, as they may have trouble writing accurately with whiteboard markers. It may be best for them to practice their writing using a pencil with unlaminated, one-time use BINGO cards.

Activity Set-Up Instructions

Game-Play Instructions

How To Play

Groups: This game is best played with at least 4 participants. One participant (a teacher or a student) must take the role of BINGO caller, while all other participants will listen to the spoken communication, and record information correctly on their BINGO cards.

Materials:

Up to 80 BINGO cards (from 2 sets of 40 cards per set)
One set of 18 Character Cards (with each character's fruit preferences)
One set of Cue Cards (Type 1)
Pens/pencils/whiteboard markers

Time / Game Round: 5-15 minutes

Each participant (other than the BINGO caller) must take a BINGO card. They will need a pen or pencil too (or a whiteboard marker, if the BINGO cards are laminated).
The BINGO caller should sit at a table or desk and put the Character Cards in front of them in a stack (face-down) as well as the set of Cue Cards (Type 1) in front of them in their own stack (face-down).
The BINGO caller should then draw one Character Card and one Cue Card and turn them both face-up. Based on the Fruit Icon on the Cue Card, the BINGO caller should read out one item of information about the character shown on the Character Card.
The Character Cards and the Bingo Cards use checkmarks and crossmarks to show whether or not a character likes each fast-food menu item.

BINGO Card
Checkmark

Character Card
Checkmark

BINGO Card
Crossmark

Character Card
Crossmark

For example, if the Fruit Icon is the icon for "grapes," then the BINGO caller should look at the current face-up Character Card and verbally communicate whether the character on the card

1. "likes bananas."
2. "doesn't like bananas."

Cue Card & Character Card Examples

In this example, "Bess likes bananas."

In this second example, the Fruit Icon is the icon for "bananas," so the BINGO caller should look at the current face-up Character Card and verbally communicate that "Sim"

~~1. "likes bananas."~~
2. "doesn't like bananas."

Cue Card & Character Card Examples

In this example, "Sim doesn't like bananas."

The other participants should listen to the information about the character, look at their own BINGO cards, and then if the information matches an available rectangle on their BINGO card, write the character's name in the rectangle on the provided writing lines.

BINGO Writing Lines Demo

BINGO Card with writing lines marked in orange.

In the below image, the rectangle marked blue is for the name of any character who is "doesn't like coconuts." The rectangle marked orange is for the name of any character who is "likes strawberries."

BINGO Square Demo

Ben likes strawberries and Bill doesn't like coconuts.

After verbally communicating the item of information dictated by the two cards, the BINGO caller should then turn both cards face-down again, and slide them under the bottom of their respective decks.

The BINGO caller can then draw one new card from each of the two decks (one card from the Cue Cards deck and one card from the Character Cards deck) and verbally communicate the information dictated by those two cards.
The BINGO caller should repeat this until one of the participating players achieves a BINGO.

Each round of the game continues until a participant scores a BINGO by correctly writing character's names into a row of 5 rectangles in any direction. The participant should then loudly announce "BINGO!"

Completed BINGO Example

A winning BINGO line (highlighted in orange)

If the BINGO caller encounters a Cue Card with 6 options on it (each marked with a different die number), the BINGO caller should then roll a die (if available) or ask one of the other game participants to choose a number between 1 and 6.

The BINGO caller should then communicate the character preference information for the chosen number.

Dice-Based Cue Cards

Once a BINGO is achieved, the winning participant and the BINGO caller (and perhaps a few other participants) should then double-check the winner's BINGO card against the information on the Character Cards to confirm that they did not make any mistakes.
If the participants wish to play again, participants can get fresh BINGO cards and the winner may become the new BINGO caller for the next round of play.

How To Play

Phonics Component

This game features a phonics component. This will allow students to simultaneously get practice using fast-food vocabulary words and developing their phonics encoding (and decoding) skills. Students will need to be able to spell out the game's 18 characters' single syllable names in order to correctly participate in the game. This will provide positive motivation to (even young) learners to improve their basic phonics skills and understanding.

The 18 characters' single syllable names are a mix of VC (vowel-consonant) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. There are a few double letter pairs at the end of several of the names, which will help English beginners develop an awareness of which letters are commonly write as a double pair at the end of works, such as "ll" and "ss."

Minimum Skill Requirements:

Participants will need basic phonics encoding skills to write the names of the included characters on the Character Cards on their BINGO cards. This includes knowledge of the pronunciation of 9 consonants (b, d, j, k, m, n, s, t, w), 3 double letter pairs (nn, ll, ss), one digraph (th), and 4 short vowels (a, e, i, o).
Any participants playing the role of BINGO caller will need basic phonics decoding skills to read and pronounce the names of the included characters on the Character Cards on their BINGO cards. This includes knowledge of the pronunciation of 9 consonants (b, d, j, k, m, n, s, t, w), 3 double letter pairs (nn, ll, ss), one digraph (th), and 4 short vowels (a, e, i, o).

Words to Learn Before Playing

The Core Vocabulary Words listed below are all words that students should learn BEFORE playing this game. Students will only need to learn the words listed for a specific set of cards to play this game with that set of cards.

Core Vocabulary Words Used in Activity
For All 80 BINGO Cards		apples, bananas, cherries, coconuts, grapes, kiwis, lemons, limes, mangos, oranges, peaches, pears, pineapple, plums, strawberries, watermelons

Words to Learn While Playing

The following words will be used to the play this game (with every available set of cards). Generally, these words can be introduced as part of full phrases while demonstrating the game procedures, rather than pre-taught as individual words. In most cases, these words can and should be learned WHILE learning/playing the game.

Vocabulary Best Learned In Context
Used With All Cards		and, doesn't, like/likes

Sentence Patterns to Use While Playing

The following sentences and sentence patterns are recommended for use while playing this game. The best way to teach these sentences, is to use them in context while introducing the game and demonstrating how to play it.

Standard Sentences and Sentence Patterns

_________________ likes _________________.

_________________ doesn't like _________________.

Vocabulary Icons

The following icons are used to represent vocabulary words on this activities BINGO Cards and the included sets of Character Cards and Cue Cards. You'll need to teach your students the meaning of each icon before they'll be able to successfully participate in this activity.

Note: All of the follow countable nouns are presented as plural nouns, as for the purposes of this game, the singular forms will not be used.

Apple Icon