This is a competitive activity that works with short videos. It normally takes up the whole class time. First, the students watch a short video. Usually, this is an informational video, but the activity could work with any video. I prefer videos with lots of graphics and visualized details. For example, The History Channel has a series of educational videos called "I Bet You Didn't Know" about various holidays. Below is an example of one about New Year's:
Before the first viewing, students are instructed that they need to take as many notes as possible from the video. This is because later they are going to use the information to create questions to quiz their classmates. The information will also be useful as a reference to answer the questions they are asked during the competition. It's important to mention that they may ask about any details from the video: important dates, names, or even the color of a person's clothes. The students may need a second viewing to gather more information. Furthermore, depending on the students' English level, the video may need to be slowed down some.
After the students have their information, they are divided into teams of 2–4. At this point, they have a few minutes to work together with their information to create 5–7 questions. Once all teams have their questions, the competition begins. The way I do it, in order to ensure variety of who asks who a question, I let each team, in turn, pick a team from whom they would like to RECEIVE a question. Once a team has asked a question, they cannot be chosen again in that round. The teacher will need to moderate this, especially for the last few teams because it won't work if the last team to receive a question is also the last team who still hasn't given a question. (They can't ask themselves a question.) Moreover, if a question has already been asked, another team can't ask it again. Each question must be unique.
When a team is asked a question, they have a few seconds to discuss amongst themselves and provide one response. The team asking the question says whether it is right or wrong without revealing the correct answer. This is because other teams have a chance to "steal" the point. After an incorrect answer, the team who raises their hands first may attempt to answer. If they are also wrong, the next team to raise their hands may try, and so on. Teams are not allowed more than one attempt to answer a question. After all teams have had their turn, a new round begins. Each round, teams must choose a different team from whom to receive a question.
Points may be awarded to teams for each question they correctly answer. If a team asks a question and no other team is able to answer correctly, the team asking the question wins the point. To make things more interesting, instead of simply awarding a point for each question, I like to have teams win points by choosing a box from a Typhoon grid. Typhoon is a fun, yet simple, activity that gets students excited because they don't know what is in the box they choose. The point amounts could be as large as 10,000 or as small as 1. and there may be special boxes, such as "choose a team to lose their points," "steal points from any one team," "lose all your points," "double your points," etc. These are represented by symbols. For example, an "S" could symbolize "steal." This is all left up to the teacher. Typhoon can also be adapted to add fun competition to a number of activities. For more information on the game of Typhoon, click here.
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