Игра - "Teach a classmate!"

Teach a classmate!

Level

4-7 grades.

Purpose

In anything that involves order, like grammar, this activity will cause students to understand the order. More concretely, if subject-predicate-object is being taught, this activity will cause students to understand and be able to create the proper sequence of a subject-predicate-object sentence.

Introduction

Once the teacher gives the knowledge to the students, the most advanced students will understand it first. After this event, the most advanced students have the opportunity to teach. Therefor, it is resourceful to let the advanced students teach.

Preparation and Materials

The teacher will need to prepare slips of paper or cards with the items that need to be ordered. Each card could have an alphabet letter, a word in a sentence, or the words, “First, next, then, last.” The teacher will need the same number of cards, or more cards than students in the class. I made a card template below.

Procedure (10min)

1. First the teacher needs to teach the lesson of how to order the thing in question. The teacher may need to teach subject-verb-object or the alphabet before attempting this activity. If there are more than 3 students and the topic is subject-verb-object, then you might consider having a multi-sentence chain.
2. Pass out the cards, one per student.
3. Ask the students to walk randomly around the classroom with their card.

1.      Sometimes the students don’t understand. So, I model by walking around the classroom randomly.

2.      Often the students will naturally make a ring around the classroom and move in a circle single file. Some students try to break it up, but the teacher may need to walk through and cut the circle.

3.      The students making a circle effect is a social phenomenon found in roller and ice skating rinks. It is just, “mutual self interest.”

4. The teacher will say, “stop, freeze, 1 2 3 eyes on me,” or whatever is standard to stop the students.
5. Say, “line up in order.”
6. Inspect the cards and direct any out of order students.
7. Either end this activity, or ask each student to trade cards with a partner.
8. Start again at step 3.

Conclusion

This activity is a kinesthetic activity that will allow the most advanced students to error correct the less advanced ones in a controlled manner. This activity is great for small or large classes. I tested it myself. I should also mention that students young and old will get very rowdy in this class. I use this activity to wake up students after or before a reading lesson. However, sometimes I have to ask them to slow down.