I made a geography game for the pedagogical trade fair. It was designed to help familiarize participants with the countries of the Arab world and to raise awareness about some Arab geographers who have made important contributions, all while having fun.

My game consisted of a blank map of the Middle East with a stack of small cards with the names of the countries written on them. On the backs of the cards were clues to help the students if they weren’t sure of where to place a country.

There were three stacks of cards with the map. The first stack had the country names written in English, the second had them written in Arabic transliterated into English letters, and the third stack had the country names written in Arabic.

I would use this activity with adult students or in a college class near the start of a beginning class in Arabic, both in order to teach the geography of the Arab countries and to familiarize the students with the Arabic alphabet.

I think it was a success overall, both in the learning part and in the having fun part. The participants had more fun and did better when they used the hints written on the backs of the cards, so if I did it again, I would present the hints as the primary option, rather than as a backup plan to use only if needed. This is because some participants seemed intimidated by the large number of unknown countries and were too embarrassed to use the hints. This led some people not to try to complete the activity. However, people who used the hints stuck with it and enjoyed it.

This post was written by Josiah