level: Junior High
target_English: simple questions, & reasoning
big_small: Big groups
I assistant teach at junior high schools, and a number of the teachers like me to walk around asking the kids questions. Two problems, one is that it makes kids nervous, and two is that it's pretty boring, being a bad use of time.
Also, I'm tired of asking kids these questions. They should learn how to ask them too, right? Conversation runs both ways.
With that in mind... This game is pretty simple.
1. Split the kids into groups.
2. Think of some questions and answers. For example, "what sport do you like?" "I like soccer."
3. Now, instead of asking the question, tell them the answer, "I like soccer."
4. In groups, they have to come up with the question.
5. Each group reads their answer.
I say it's best to have someone in the group write it down, so they don't forget or change their answer.
It's possible that there will be multiple correct answers that are different. So this is good, teaching them that the language is open-ended. You can do scoring as you wish, giving 1 point to correct answers, or 1 to correct answers and .5 to partially correct ones. But I'm betting that all the answers that aren't correct will be partially correct.
Josh Katz
