Category: Games

The Marker Game: A Listening Comprehension Competition!

I love using games to provide more input to students – it feels like disguising the vegetables in a meal for a child. And when students are pin-drop silent to be sure to hear every single word of their L2? Those moments are *chefs kiss* in the always-hectic teaching profession. The Marker Game is a tried-and-true for my classes, and I’m happy to share it with you.

Why should you play? Because this game is a great way to review with students, and the competition aspect gets them listening veeeerrrry closely. It also works as a great, no-prep formative assessment!

When do I use the Marker Game?

Play the Marker Game after students have learned about a topic – this could be the information covered in one class period, or over the course of a unit. It’s a review game, and could be a great way to help students retrieve things they have learned over the course of a unit of study. Or, it can just be a way to sneak in more listening input of new language before beginning a Write and Discuss!

How do I do it? – Logistics

It’s called the Marker Game, but really, you just need to have some sort of physical object that students can put on the ground or table between them. I have used dollar store stuffed animals for this, highlighters, markers, my students’ own pencils – so long as the object is easy for your students to grab. (I actually generally prefer my stuffed animals because they are less…stab-y…)

You will also want to think about the statements you will be making as part of the game. You can prepare a list of statements about the topic of study, with some true and some false all mixed together. This can help make sure you hit specific informational points, or use specific language. I have also consulted the texts we have created during Write and Discuss as a source of ideas and inspiration for statements about what we’ve been studying.

Or, you can do what I do 90% of the time, which is: make the statements up on the fly! As I’m often doing this with the information learned in that specific class period, I just refer to whatever images or new language have been up on my board, and work from that. Follow your comfort!

How do I do it? – Procedure

  1. Have students partner up in a manner of your choosing. A group of 3 could also work!
  2. Give each partnership the “grabbable” object, and instruct them in the L2 to lay it on the table/ground between them.
  3. Tell the class in L2 that you are going to make statements about [the topic.]
  4. Tell the class (and demonstrate) that if you say something true/correct, to grab the object and hold it in the air.
  5. Tell the class (and demonstrate) that if you say something false/incorrect, to do nothing. Don’t pick up the object, don’t touch it, etc.
  6. I always start the first play-through of the game by stating in L2, “My name is…Barbara.” If the kids do nothing, I go “yeah woohoo y’all are so smart!” Then, I say in L2, “My name is…Herr Fisher-Rodriguez!” If they scramble to grab the object and hold it aloft, boom! You’re ready to go.
  7. Make a statement about the learned content in L2, verrrrrry slowly. Students often get excited during this game, so slightly lowering your voice is a great way to get them to lean in and hang on every word.
  8. Heap some love on correct responses (either they didn’t raise the object at a false statement, or DID raise it at a true one), and let everyone who answered erroneously/didn’t get the object know that it’s alright, they’ll get it next time. I usually reiterate correct statements, maybe asking for a quick translation, and repeat false statements while shaking my head or saying something like “how silly!” in the L2.
  9. Keep going until your energy is gone, their energy/focus is gone, or you have nothing left to say about the topic at hand! (Though if you want, you can start throwing in even older content to shake things up and keep the review going!)

What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?

Game over! Since this was such a great session of reviewing auditory input, it is a good idea to have that information in text form for students to read, as well. If you don’t have a prepared text, Write and Discuss is a great way to create a level-appropriate text that demonstrates writing conventions, spelling, etc. that you can use for further extension activities. I find that using this before Write and Discuss actually makes it flow better, as the language is fresh in mind and has been repeated quite a bit!

Pro Tips!

  1. Puppy guarding and head bonking are no-nos! Some students, in their competitiveness, try to hover their hands over the object to best their partner. Perhaps indicate where student hands should rest unless they are decidedly reaching for the object. Sometimes, my students also lean their whole body into getting the object (it kind of looks like a football tackle), which can lead to head bonking injuries. You might also indicate that the objective is to grab the object first, not maintain possession after a fumble.
  2. Tally marks! I usually don’t keep score because the moment-to-moment competition is enough to keep students engaged, but if you want, you can have students keep score in whatever way is simplest for you. I sometimes just give a scrap of scratch paper, and then students use the marker from the game to tally their scores as they go. Winners get a sticker, a piece of candy, or just points in my heart and many days of future happiness!
  3. Formatively assess and reteach! Sometimes, students won’t rush to grab the object, or erroneously grab it at a false statement. This is data for me as the teacher! I can then give a quick translation/gesture/drawing of any tricky bits to reteach vocabulary or information, and/or make sure to incorporate the tricky vocabulary/information into future statements during the game to give students helpful repetitions and more chances at success.
  4. Make them work for it! Sometimes, I’m evil and save a huge twist for the end of the sentence (works great in German) so that they really have to be paying attention to meaning and not just listen for familiar words. Make them work for it!!!
  5. Thinking! You can rephrase information so that it doesn’t appear in the same form as it did when students initially learned it. This sharpens listening skills a lot. You can also make statements that require inference from students, based on the information learned, as an extra challenge toward higher-order thinking.

What if I want to learn more?

Here is a post from the Comprehensible Classroom that introduces a team competition variation on the game – students form two lines facing each other, and points are earned by how many players on each team raised the object OR by which team had the majority of the successful object grabs. So fun! (See also Martina’s expert note on why not to use bouncy balls as the object for the game, lol)

Allison at Mis Clases Locas projects the statements on the board, which allows for more reading input and for projecting the correct answers!

Both posts point to Cynthia Hitz as the originator of this strategy, so check out her blog!

What do you think? Do you feel ready to play the Marker Game? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!

Partner Speaking Game / Q+A Game / Interpersonal Speaking Game – Just Talking, plus Points

Fundamental for our learners’ language proficiency is access to boatload of Comprehensible Input, and so I spend most of my class time facilitating interesting reading and listening input in the L2 for my students. But some theorists argue that opportunities for negotiated output help learners gain easier access to the growing linguistic system, and are essential for building communicative competence. Additionally, most kids come to L2 courses expecting to themselves speak the L2 in class! If we don’t at the very least speak to their expectations, teenagers can get…restless.

But: how do we most efficiently facilitate this without raising their hackles, or having to take time as the teacher to try to talk to each individual kid? (FishRod is heard gently crying in the distance, reflecting on his class sizes of 30+) Enter: a “game” with many names that I learned from Tina Hargaden! You pose questions to the whole class, and in pairs, students alternate answering the questions, and recording the quality/quantity of their partner’s responses. Bam!

Why should you play the Partner Speaking Game / Q+A Game / Interpersonal Speaking Game? This can be a great way to build student awareness of the fact that all the input they receive is doing something, boost confidence, and give you a bit of a break! My students always come away from this game proud of what they are able to produce, and reflective on how they can increase their output for the future!

When do I use the Partner Speaking Game?

The Partner Speaking Game is a great game to put at the end of a sequence of lots of auditory/reading exposure on a topic or story. Students need to be comfortable with the language you will be using to pose the questions during the game, and if your questions will be about a specific text, they need to be very, very familiar with it.

If I were doing a Movie Talk, for example, I would give loads of auditory input by describing stills from the video, then have students read one or more texts narrating what happens in the video, and make sure that they have had plenty more interaction with any new language (through Personalized Questions) before setting them up to play the Partner Speaking Game. We want our learners to be full-to-bursting with language so the “game” feels like a breeze!

Sidebar, I keep calling it a “game” (with the quotes) because it is basically a Retell or Interpersonal Speaking Assessment, with the addition of a “points” element so that students can push themselves for more “points” (aka – more output!). The game is just talking, plus points! Yippee!

How do I do it? – Logistics

  1. You can definitely improvise your questions about recent content, but I always prepare my question sets ahead of time. The page I provide below has spaces for 8 responses, but because only one student will be answering at a time, I would need to prepare 16 questions to cover both partners’ papers.
  2. Partner students up using your preferred method. A group of 3 could work, but only if you have an uneven amount of students. Designate a “Partner A” and “Partner B” in each partnership, as well. (Either let the kids decide, or say that Partner A is the person closest to the door, with the longer hair, etc.)
  3. Give each individual student a copy of a sheet something like this. If you don’t teach German, feel free to copy and modify to your needs! Have students write their partner’s name at the top, then their name and what Partner (A/B) they are, and the date.
  4. Depending on how comfortable your students are with the language/content of the questions, you might have key vocabulary posted for all to see, or any visuals created by the class (maybe a drawing of an OWI story, a cooperative mural, etc.).

How do I do it? – Procedure

  1. Explain to your students (in L1 or L2) that they will be talking about [the topic that we have been discussing recently]. One partner will talk at a time, and the other partner will listen.
  2. Explain that you, the teacher, will be posing a question in L2, and giving students a certain amount of time for their answer, also in L2. (I do somewhere between 20 and 45 seconds – 20 seconds would mirror the timing of the AP Simulated Conversation task. You might also just let students talk until they fizzle out talking in the L2 – follow your heart – but I find that the limits keep things moving and keep things more in the L2.)
  3. While one partner is talking, the other is listening and “giving points” to their partner about the quality of their response. For example, if the speaker hears the question, understands it, and responds in L1, their partner can still give them a point! But if they hear the question, understand it, and say even a single simple sentence in the L2, BAM. 4 points! The “scoring rubric” I use is pictured above, and I try to give quick examples of what each level might sound like before we play the first time.
  4. After each question, students switch roles, so now the speaker is the listener, and vice versa. During the game, I keep track of this by saying: “Okay, now Partner B speaks, question 4: [the question].”
  5. Begin! Ask the first question you have prepared, set a timer for the responses, if you’d like, and listen for half the class to be answering at a time.
  6. Continue asking questions, with students alternating roles between each question, until you run out of time or reach the end of your prepared questions (or whatever sheet you end up using).

What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?

Have students tally the points their partner received at the bottom, and then give their partner the points paper. Students then flip their sheets over, and answer some reflection questions about how their speaking experience went today. This is more or less optional, but I find it helps drive home the fact that the students were speaking a lot of the L2 just now!

I like to have students turn these sheets in so I can see how they did, as well as what their reflections on the process were. If students confess to not feeling confident, you can adjust your instruction to support them better by more frequently calling on them for comprehension checks (or checking more with the people around them, so that the student is hearing a neighbor with the correct answer frequently). Sometimes, the student might just need a pep talk from you about how they can do it, even if it feels hard at times!

I keep portfolios of my students’ “major works,” and I like to throw these sheets into those portfolios as mile markers of their progress and comfort with speaking the L2. Otherwise, you can return them to students with jubilations and compliments about how great they did! If I do assign a grade to these, it is typically a very small amount of points, just because it wasn’t actually me assessing the quality of student responses.

Pro Tips!

  1. Start from the familiar and move away! When I’m drafting my questions, I typically start with about 2 slam-dunk questions for each partner right at the beginning of the game, typically easy questions about the opening moments of the text we’ve been working with. This builds confidences and greases the wheels for more speaking, I find. My next questions typically than follow the narrative order of whatever we had been reading or viewing. Then, I end with about 2 or more questions for each partner that are more personalized! If the previous questions were all about the narrative of a Movie Talk, for example, the final questions might be about what the student might have done in the same situation, or questions related to the themes/topics of the Movie Talk, for example. If the Movie Talk was about a middle school crush, I might ask, “What were you like in middle school?” or, “Did you have a crush in middle school?” At this point, they have already been using the language of the video context quite a bit, and can try to extend it to talking about themselves!
  2. Circulate! While students are answering questions, move about your classroom to hear the things they are saying. This can give you a quick formative assessment of where students are confident, and where they are struggling. It also gives you space to encourage any shy students, maybe providing a key word or idea to help them start answering the question.
  3. Teach students to be supportive listeners! I always demonstrate to my students that it is intimidating to talk your L2 to someone who is staring at you in stoney-faced silence. Model how one might nod and smile at their partner, and maybe even gestures or facial expressions that could indicate, “Yes, keep going!”
  4. Try a simpler version! An alternative to using the scoring sheet I linked above might be to just have partnerships count the number of words in their partner’s responses, with each word being a point. This can save you on setup time, and if you felt comfortable improvising, you could just ask questions about the day’s Card Talk, Special Person Interview, or other daily content. Students could tally on scrap paper, or just count with their fingers!
  5. STICKERS! If you are overflowing with stickers, have students mark the quality of their partner’s responses by placing stickers in those boxes. That would require each partnership having a sheet of stickers to themselves, but boy do kids (even high schoolers! even adults!) love stickers!

What if I want to learn more?

Because this game can go by many names, I haven’t been able to locate any other blog posts / videos about it – if you find any, let me know! I’d be happy to link them here for further reading.

What do you think? Do you feel ready to use the Partner Speaking Game? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!