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 Too many Spanish-speakers seem to feel that learning English is beyond them. We’ve been overcoming this barrier in my classroom since the 70’s, with the help of games based on a Mexican-picture-bingo as traditional as the piñata. ¡BINGLéS! La Lotería para Aprender Inglés teaches selected vocabulary and common linguistic structures, while learners play a game they’ve enjoyed since childhood.
My name is Deborah Frisch, and I've taught English as a Second Language in New York, Cancún Mexico, California, and in short stints in Germany and throughout Central and South America. These games showed me that people don’t need teachers to learn a second language. With a pronunciation model, and a series of structured but entertaining ways to interact with friends, family or classmates in the new language, any group can teach itself.
There is an added incentive: since la Lotería is usually played as a game of chance, ¡BINGLéS! players will want to collect a kitty of small change, or play for candy, peanuts, or whatever the group chooses. In classes students can play for applause or classroom privileges. This way learners get really involved, and wager their way toward fluency in the new language.
The ¡BINGLéS! game set consists of:
• a deck of 54 picture playing cards, with subtitles in English and in phonetic English
• 12 games and activities
• an audio CD with pronunciation models for each game and activity, as well as a fun bilingual theme song, ¡El Merengue Binglés!
• lyrics for ¡El Merengue Binglés!
• 10 bingo cards, each with a grid of 16 images
• a pair of cancioneros (songsheets), citing popular sayings for the illustrated figures pictured on the playing cards
• a pair of “Magic Cards” for covering text to reinforce learning
• 100 plastic bingo markers
Don Clemente/Pasatiempos Gallo/CYPSA, S.A. de C.V. has been publishing the most popular version of la Lotería since 1887. Now it has printed ¡BINGLéS! La Lotería para Aprender Inglés, using the same beautiful 50’s-style artwork, with its lush palette of colors.
Buy ¡BINGLéS!
Offered separately, the ¡BINGLéS! Workbook-on-CD includes everything a teacher needs to turn ¡BINGLéS! into a complete beginner's course for learning English, one that your learners will love! The worksheets progress from listing the ¡¡BINGLéS! vocabulary in eight categories, to fill-in-the-blanks for the the games' questions and answers (eg. "Do you have the rooster?" "No, I don't."), to reading comprehension exercises about our favorite Loterķa characters, and finally to games that integrate many of the structures students have learned.
Buy ¡BINGLéS! Workbook-on-CD
Wherever there are Mexicans and people of Mexican descent, the kids find shady spots to play la Lotería. After the kids are in bed, parents, neighbors and friends lay that same Lotería set on the table. At carnivals, fairs and flea markets throughout the U.S., Mexico and Central America, barkers call out pithy sayings about each Lotería picture, for a wheel-of-fortune game. The same settings work equally for ¡BINGLéS!, and so do adult, secondary and primary classrooms where teachers seek small group activities for reinforcement.
In the US and Canada, there are too many reasons why some people never learn English. Working people with families have trouble finding time for classes, even free ones. Children growing up in Spanish-speaking households in latino communities may acquire English passively, but still need to speak their second language to learn it well. Family members who work outside the home may acquire English on the job, but often the housewives and grandmothers remain monolingual.
Throughout Latin America, private language academies offer English classes, but at prices only a small percentage of the potential learners can afford. It’s a real challenge to learn to speak in a new language in an overcrowded public school class. Autodidactic courses are sold by the millions; however, most people don’t enjoy isolating themselves to study them.
But learning English with ¡BINGLéS! is a lively social activity, and provides a stress-free avenue for the English speakers in the group to help the new learners. Some games and activities focus specifically on English structures that present problems for Spanish speakers: possessives, does/doesn’t, question words, etc. People who have learned English without instruction can often correct habitual errors while playing ¡BINGLéS!
Finally, many people think learning a new language is just too hard for them. But if they can begin by playing a simple game they’ve known all their lives, and then progress in small steps, no one should find it overwhelming. And no working family should find this set too expensive. So what do Spanish-speaking English-learners need? ¡BINGLéS!
Sincerely,
Deborah Frisch, M.A.Ed.
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