Captur Paddles - Activities Which Include Handouts

Students' Opinion Surveys

Bill Pellowe — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:11:50 +0000

Have students work in small groups. Each group receives a copy of the Survey worksheet. The group should create a question and four options. If you find that your students have difficulty creating questions, you could print out a list of questions, cut the questions into small strips of paper, put the strips in a bag, and have student groups pick a question that way. If you do this, then all they have to do is think up four options as answers.

Ask students to discuss which option they believe will be most popular answer. Why do they think so? Ask them to fill out the "prediction section" section of the survey form.

We think "New York" will be the most popular answer, because recently, some Japanese celebrities have posted Instagram photos from Times Square and the Statue of Liberty.

To start, have the students put their reply scale on the board. For example:

London

Paris

New York City

Tokyo

After their introduction to the survey question, they pose the question:

Where would you rather go to visit for a week?

The class replies all at once, using their Captur paddles to give their answers. The students should count how many of the class responded with each option.

After all of the votes have been counted, the students can write those tallies on the board, next to the options.

Discussion Option

At this time, the teacher should tell the class to get into small groups to discuss their reaction to the vote tally, and to explain their reasons for their own vote. Even reluctant students seem to be more willing to become engaged in discussions after they have committed to an answer.

A follow-up vote could be taken later, to see if anyone has changed their minds.

"Remarks" Section

Have students write their own comments on the survey. Did the results align with their predictions? Why (or why not)? Any surprises?

We thought that many students would choose New York City. But most students said "Tokyo." Maybe they want to speak Japanese and eat Japanese food every day. Or maybe it's because most of the students are from Kyushu, and they've never been to Tokyo before.

We believe that the prediction and the analysis stages help students think more deeply about the activity. These stages also provide good opportunities for expressing themselves in English.

Type of Activity:

Surveys

Skills:

Listening

Materials:

Handouts

Other:

Activities Which Include Handouts

Student-Centered Activities

Trivia Quizzes with Captur Paddles

Bill Pellowe — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 12:14:44 +0000

Preparation

Students can work in pairs or groups. The students come up with a trivia question and options.

They also fill in the prediction section of the trivia quiz sheet -- how many people do they think will answer correctly (all, most, half, some, none)? Why do they think so? Afterwards, they will be asked to compare their prediction with the actual results.

Giving the Trivia Quiz

You can opt to have students write the options on the board, or to simply say the option aloud. If aloud, they could do it like this:

One student says the question.
Another student says each option.
The first student repeats the question.
The students do a "countdown" for the rest of the students to show their answers ("3, 2, 1, answer!")
The students count the answers, and write them in the "results" section of the handout

Alternatively, you may decide to have students write the options on the board, maybe because you have lower-level students, or maybe it's because the response options are more complex. In that case, prior to step 1 above, have the students write the options on the board. For example:

fish

mammal

reptile

bird

During step 2 above, the students point to the response options as they say them aloud.

Follow-up

Have students fill out the "remarks" section. Here, they can comment on how well or how badly their prediction matched the results. They could speculate on possible reasons for this.

Example:
We asked, "What kind of animal is a whale?" Our options were fish, mammal, reptile, and bird. Most students knew that whales are mammals, but some answered "fish". I wasn't surprised, because it's an easy mistake.

Teams Option

One option is to put students into "teams". You can have more than two teams. The challenge is to have the same number of students on each team. The students can count the number of correct answers for each of the opposing teams, and write the results on the board.

Type of Activity:

Quizzes

Skills:

Listening

Materials:

Handouts

Other:

Activities Which Include Handouts

Student-Centered Activities

Find Someone Who

Bill Pellowe — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 15:15:49 +0000

In English conversation classes, one popular activity is "Find Someone Who". Often, these activites are copied out of resource books or created by the teacher; sometimes, they appear in communicative textbooks. These activities are easily extended to Captur activities.

What Are "Find Someone Who" Activities?

These "Find Someone Who" activities contain sentences about people, but the names are left blank. For example:

_______ likes spicy food.
_______ has been to California.
_______ can ski well.

The students are to go around the classroom asking other students questions based on these sentences. For example:

Do you like spicy food?
Have you ever been to California?
Can you ski well?

When they find someone whose answer fits the sentence, they write that person's name in the blank space. They can ask the questions in any order, but they should only talk with one person for a couple of minutes before moving on to another partner.

Warm Up: Grammar

Before students do the "Find Someone Who" activity, I use the Captur paddles to review the question structures that they'll need to use.

On the board, you have:

Do you _______?

Can you _______?

Are you _______?

Have you ever _______?

The first line in my "Find Someone Who" activity above is, _______ likes spicy food. So, ask the students:

For this first one, what question do you ask?

"Something something like spicy food?" Show me:

They should all show you , the response for "Do you ____?"

Confirm it:

Yes, "Do you." Do you like spicy food?

Depending on the students' level, you might want to do one or some of the following:

Students ask you the question in a chorus. You answer.
Ask a student the question.
Have one student ask you the question. You answer.

Most "Find Someone Who" activity sheets have about ten or 12 questions on them, but it would be tedious to do this kind of warm up for every one of the questions. If students are consistently choosing the correct question form, then you know you can stop, and let them do the activity. However, if they're having trouble with it, you may have to review the reasons why we make these choices.

Doing the Activity

Please download our example activity sheet to use in your own classes, or as a model for creating your own version.

In classes where students are generally friendly with each other, you can just let them mill about with their forms, asking whoever is available. However, in some classes, you could end up with students who hesitate to interact. In other classes, you may find that a group of students has formed in order to give each other fast answers. Don't let students write down any answers that they've overheard.

The point of this activity is to have students asking and answering these questions on their own, to a large number of people. You could have them form a double line, talking with the person directly across from themselves. After a few minutes, you tell them to rotate: One person at the front of the line moves to the opposite line, and the person at the back of the second line moves to the first line, and all students move so that they're standing across from a new partner.

Tip: In large classes, this can get confusing, so you could ask students to shake hands with their parter, or just say hello to their partner, to make sure that no students have been left without a partner.

Type of Activity:

Quizzes

Skills:

Grammar Activities

Materials:

Handouts

Other:

Activities Which Include Handouts