Game Shows

Have you ever wondered how you could make your classes more interesting? I wanted to make a reading lesson about British culture, while including a few other English speaking countries so, that the students could learn a few things that perhaps they didn’t know.

Originally I had written a text for them to read and they had to answer some comprehension questions. That would be a pretty standard way to do it and I thought it was a bit boring. Then the other day I saw a game show on the T.V called “pasapalabra” and it gave me an idea, rather than get the students to answer comprehension question in the traditional and rather boring manner, I should try to include a word that starts with or contains each letter of the alphabet.

I got the students to read the text and to underline any words they didn’t know, then we would go over some of the vocabulary included in the text, just to make sure they understood everything. Then I would set a 10 minute timer (although this can vary depending on ability/level) and we would play the game, like in pasapalabra. If they had to skip the word, we would move on to the next one. Once they had reached z, they could quickly go over the text again to find any of the missing words that they hadn’t got. Once they had done that, the timer started again.

I definitely recommend taking some ideas from game shows to make your classes more entertaining and exciting for your students.It is also a great way to see if they have understood everything they have read.