Thanks to Joe Alamo for this wonderful idea - I used it several times this year, but always tweaking it so it seems different every time. The beauty to this is that you can use the same material but use it differently and they become different activities. This is one of my students' favorite activities. They don't explicitly tell me so, but the level of engagement makes me want to continue using it.
PREPARATION
Basically, you need to make a list of standard questions which students are expected to know by the end of the unit/marking period/year, such as "What is your nationality?", "Does he have younger brothers?", "What would you like to eat?", "How are these pants?" etc. For the original version of the activity, make two identical decks of cards, each card with an answer that correlate with one question, in correct sentence structures, like "I am Japanese," "No, he doesn't have younger brothers," "I would like to eat ice-cream," "They feel very comfortable." etc.
HOW TO
If there is clearly a student who is more advanced than the rest, let this student take on the challenge in reading the questions, assuming the role of the teacher. That way, he/she does not throw off the competition between the groups. And you become the facilitator of the activity and divide up the class into two compatible groups. Each of these group will get a deck of the cards. Sometimes the group can lay out all the cards and look at the cards together; and sometimes they can divide up the cards so each person can focus on his/her own cards. When the questions are asked, whoever has the corresponding answer card needs to call out "I have" in the target language and provide the appropriate answer to the question. And like many competitive games, you put down a point for whichever team gets the correct answer.
Variation 1 - Because our students are also required to know translations for various Chinese phrases on the district quarterlies, I take the same activity and read out the English and they would call out "I have" when they identify the right translation for the English phrases/answers I give them. This is one occasion when I am using non-target language and my students are using target language. It's pretty funny.
Variation 2 - Instead of making only the answer cards, make both question and answer cards and mix them up. Have students try to match the questions and answers in groups.
PRE-ACTIVITY ASSIGNMENT
I like to use matching in assignments, so for the assignments before doing the "I have" activity, I give students a list of 20 questions on one side, and their corresponding answers on the other side but in different order. They need to determine what answers go with what question. You can do the same with Chinese on one side and English translation on the other side.
WORDS OF CAUTION
-This activity is good for when you are confident that students are more or less proficient, otherwise it can make them feel lost and frustrated.
-Feel free to use pinyin with lower-level classes when you are not trying to review the character recognition, but rather are trying to solidify their understanding for question/sentence structures. But use strictly characters if that is the end-gold for the unit/marking period.
-Color code your cards for the different groups and classes, unless you want to spend half and hour after each class sorting them out.
-Make sure students understand the rules and expectations before starting, so the activity can run smoothly.
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