Mourad EL HANAFI | MENA English
In this post, we will introduce you to a simple but funny game/activity you can try in your classroom. We prefer to call it: the “Homogeneity Test.” Basically, you can adapt it in any lesson, but it is better used as a follow-up to grammar or communication lessons where you want your students to further practise structures or functions they have just learned, or you can use it just for fun. It really works well, especially with slow learners who always feel the need to write everything they want to say. What is also good about this game is that it does not require any props or complicated instructions.
Before you start, you can introduce the game to your students as one way to test whether they are a cohesive and homogenous class/group or not. I know this is kind of outlandish, but it is just a trick to give some credibility to your activity and thus have them engaged.
You divide the class into two groups, A & B. You ask the students in group A to take strips of paper and write only questions as they imagine they ask someone, sticking to the content or lesson you just taught them. They can ask either WH or Yes/No questions. Each student asks only one question.
The students in the other group are requested to imagine they answer someone and write that too on their strips of paper.
After all the members of the class are done, collect all the strips to your desk. Place the questions and answers in separate places, then give each a shuffle.
Here is the funny part of the game. You call everybody’s attention, then take a question randomly and read it out and pick up an answer and read it out as well and see if they match. Some exchanges will most likely be funny while others match perfectly in absolute coincidence, which will amaze your students.
For scoring, you can give 1 point for every exchange that matches and 0 for the one that does not. If the number of the exchanges that match outweighs the number of the exchanges that fall flat, you announce the class as cohesive, or else they are otherwise.