Truth or Bluff

So, I did the Summer Vacation -- oh, excuse me, I mean Holiday -- Truth or Bluff activity today with the 4eme. It came from Onestopenglish.com, which has some good material for a free internet resource and is decently organized. It's my new favorite. Has anyone signed up for a paid subscription? I wonder if it's worth asking my bosses to join.

As a warmer, it worked pretty well and I got a very good idea of their levels. I accidentally called on one of the weaker kids first -- that's the rub with a new class -- who predictably read his card, thereby defeating the purpose of the activity. I pushed him a bit, anyway, but in a joking manner so that he got enough off-the-cuff speaking time. Since he was first, I gave him a little slack but forewarned the others that if they read instead of bluffing, they would get "yet more practice." The other weaker student immediately gave it away when it was his turn, but I gave him another card, some time to think, and the second time he did brilliantly. The rest of the bluffers did an excellent job of pretending they went to Australia to visit family or on wild water adventure trips in Canada, etc. At the end when I asked them to list activities that were useful, I think most of them listed Truth or Bluff.

Another activity they found both useful and enjoyable was a version of Question Tic-Tac-Toe. I wasn't initially thrilled about it (the lessons are mostly planned and the teachers select among suggested activities) but I liked it better than some of the other suggestions. It involves a grid of 20 squares with different question starters written in them...things such as 'Why did...," How many..., " and "Who were..." Students had to get 3 squares in a row by choosing a number and asking another group a grammatically correct question using the starter. It was harder than it sounds and gave them a good review of verb tenses before school starts back up. The true goal, I believe, was to aim for trivia questions but I ended up taking it down a notch and just focusing on the basics of how to form questions. Another team had to answer the question correctly or they lost a turn, so that team also got a good review of how to make sure the tenses matched between the question and answer.

I was surprised at how long they wanted to continue playing and also at how most of them listed it as really useful. I don't see this as being a good activity for a large group, though, because they got a lot of feedback and hints from me as they were making their questions (if they didn't have any guidance it would have been a total waste of time). They actually spoke a mix of French/English so I could understand what they were trying to say and then guide them in making the questions they wanted versus the questions they were 'forced' into based on the starters. Another surprise was that the other groups were paying attention to the group trying to formulate their question in order to get tips and then be able to "steal" the square later. Huh. Who knew?

You know, though, I do feel a lot of sympathy with the classroom teachers who have groups of 30 students. It's so difficult to set up successful groupwork and be able to adequately monitor all the students. It's a situation that just sets itself up for question & answer / grammar worksheets. I'd love to hear from people who are successful at setting up effective small-group activities in large classes.