I really have been trying to limit the amount of “new” I introduce into my teaching practice lately. It helps me stay focused, and lessens the paralysis I feel when sitting in front of my planning, both short- and long-term. I even blogged about using a planning menu to increase efficiency. But then I learned about this new-to-me activity from Bryan Kandel (via Keith Toda) and I am HOOKED. When something is fun, easy to implement, and generates tons of targeted language, it goes right onto that menu next to all the other awesome strategies I’ve curated over the years.
Why should you use the activity I’ve inelegantly named “The Survey Quiz Game”? It feels like a game, so students lock in quickly to processing the language in order to “win.” It’s very personalized, so you learn a lot of things very quickly about your students. And it allows for targeting high-frequency language in a way that doesn’t feel repetitive or boring. Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
When do I use The Survey Quiz Game?
This activity could fit into a couple places in a planning sequence. To make it easiest and most enjoyable for students, I would use it after they have been exposed to new language in a couple different ways via Input, Review, and Reading activities. It makes for a nice way to extend student learning of targeted vocabulary or structures.
How do I do it? – Logistics
To prepare, write up a list of about 8 statements in the Target Language, using target vocabulary and the names of students in class. (Play around with the number of statements to find your “sweet spot” – fewer than 6ish might not offer enough opportunities to “score,” while more than 8 or 9 might just take too long to get to with any depth…you’ll see later why!)
As an example, I recently completed a co-created story with my students targeting “has,” ” wants…for their birthday” and “goes to.” My eight statements to extend that learning as part of this game were:
__ has an Xbox.
__ has a brother.
__ has a dog.
__ wants a dog.
__ wants a cat.
__ has a sister.
__ goes to Taco Bell often.
__ goes to Safeway (grocery store) often.
Each of those blanks was the name of a student in class.
I put the statements on Google Slides, with each one being revealed individually. In a pinch, this could also be done orally, but students would really have to be comfortable with all the vocabulary for that to be very effective.
You might also do this on the fly, just writing the sentences up on a whiteboard as you think of them, but that might be a little more stressful for you as the teacher, based on your comfort level with improvisation.
How do I do it? – Procedure
- Distribute scraps of paper or mini-whiteboards to your students, and have them number their papers/boards to the number of statements you have prepared.
- Tell students that you have [#] statements in the Target Language about people in the class. Everyone’s job is to guess whether or not those statements are true or false, and to write their guesses down. Whoever ends up with the most correct guesses wins the game!
- Show the first statement, and confirm class comprehension. At the same time, look at the student in question and make sure they don’t give away the answer. “[L2] Bob has an Xbox. Class, what does that mean in [L1]? (Confirm) Aha. Hmm…DOES Bob have an Xbox? Bob, don’t say anything! Poker face! The class is guessing!”
- Check that everyone in the class has written down either true or false, based on their guess as to their classmate’s answer.
- Move through the remaining statements. Read them aloud in the L2, make sure that the student in question doesn’t give away the correct answer, and verify that all students have written down their guess before moving on.
- After students have recorded their guesses for all the statements, review each statement with the student in question. “Bob…do you have an Xbox?” etc.
- Every student that guessed correctly about a statement gets a point!
- Ask tons of personalized questions after reviewing the answer to each statement. “Ah, Bob doesn’t have an Xbox. Bob, do you have a Nintendo Switch? Do you play video games at all? What’s your favorite game?” “Oo, Timmy has a sister! What’s her name? Is she older or younger? Will she learn German?” etc etc.
- After all statements have been reviewed and personalized, have students share how many points they earned. The winner(s) can have a prize – a sticker, a candy, or just glory/honor/etc etc.
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
To record the information learned, you might ask the students to share with a partner the Top 3-5 Most Interesting Things We Learned Via The Game, and then lead a Write and Discuss to generate a text with the information learned.
You might also just take notes to yourself, and in your planning time, write a text with all the information that you learned via the game. You could even include errors in the text, and have students identify and correct the errors as another way to review the language and information.
Any information learned becomes fair game to use in a game of The Mysterious Person, as well!
In the same class period where you play the game, you might even give a Quick Quiz about what was learned, just to be certain that all students were following along (and to get a quick listening grade).
Pro Tips!
- Randomize the subjects of the sentences! When I create the statements for the game, I click on “randomize” on my student roster to pick a subject. It increases the fun for me, because I often don’t know whether or not a given statement is true or false! This keeps things fresh for the students, too, and can be a way to encourage students who weren’t (yet) “picked” for the game.
- …or don’t! That being said, you might also use this game as a way to highlight students who haven’t felt the warm glow of the “class spotlight” yet. After a few class periods, the extroverts have established themselves, and this game is a low-stakes way to talk about/with other students. At minimum, they just have to provide a true or false answer, and the followup questioning can be extended as long as they are comfortable. Feel it out!
- Use a variation on the game to review numbers and renew interest! An easy variation on this game could be to phrase the statements as something that requires students to provide a number of people in the class who do or did a given action. Eg. “# people in our class went to the movies this weekend.” “# people in our class have a dog.” “# people in our class have to vacuum as part of their chores.” In the review phase, you ask students to raise their hands if a statement applies to them, and count them in the Target Language. (Don’t forget to include yourself!) Student scores are generated by subtracting the true number from the guesses, and the student with the lowest score (lowest difference between guesses and true answers) wins!
- Target high-frequency vocabulary! In my examples above, I targeted three of the highest-frequency verbs in German, and got tons of repetitions on them with very high student interest. This game is an easy way to get students processing the stuff we want them to be processing and using! By including similar statements (“wants a dog” vs. “has a dog”) students also had to think more about the language. (Sidebar – through “wants a dog” we learned that one of my students has two dogs and says that that is quite enough…she once had three and it was far too much dog for one household, according to her!)
- Or…target pesky “unit” vocabulary! This game could also be a jazzy way to tackle required vocabulary that we frankly find annoying. The “Daily Routine” unit is a regular life-ruiner for language teachers, but why not just use that vocabulary in this game to make it more fun? “Soandso wakes up before 6am.” “Soandso showers at night, not in the morning.” “Soandso uses their phone as an alarm clock.” etc etc
What if I want to learn more?
I originally learned about this activity from a blog post by Keith Toda, whose blog is an endless source of inspiration and reflection. Check out his original post here!
Keith learned about the activity from Give Them What They Want: A Guide to Increasing Enrollment in World Language Class by Bryan Kandel. I will admit that at first glance, I wasn’t sure if the book was for me, based purely on the title. I read it after seeing Keith’s glowing recommendation, and oh my GOODNESS. I totally agree with Bryan’s approach to increasing enrollment. It’s not about flashy gimmicks, tons of “projects,” or the teacher being a certain kind of person. It’s about offering rigorous World Languages instruction that increases student competence, relatedness, and offers autonomy through (reasonable, limited) choice. I found the book very inspiring, and took away tons of notes for implementation in my classroom. (It even gave me a reality check about my own Target Language use in class – which is something I present on and insist on as part of my teaching philosophy! Whew!)