As I have
promised Cristina, I am sharing one thought-provoking method to get your
students engaged to speaking; the lateral thinking quizzes. They were first
invented by the psychologist Dr Edward
De Bono and I have come across some of those in the coursebook we use in the
class.
Advantages:
- You get your students thinking
- Learners can practice the form of questions
- Listening and skills are particularly promoted
- It is a nice activity to end the lesson
- It encourages pair- work
- You can motivate your students to write their own lateral thinking quizzes
- It can be used in all levels and for all age groups
- It can be adjusted to different learner types, i.e. you can show it written over a projector while you are reading it aloud and draw some of the hints on the whiteboard
- The TTT is limited since the teacher just gives short answers, like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘it doesn’t matter’, ‘maybe’ to the students’ questions
Disadvantages:
- Shy or weaker students may not have enough time to contribute to the answer and thus they might be discouraged. The teachers can coordinate the speed of the game so that everyone can have the opportunity to utter the answer or they can form the pairs combining a stronger with a weaker student.
- Teacher has to choose in advance the quiz that responds to the maturity and thinking procedure of their students, according to their age.
Here you can find some quizzes that
you could use in your classes. There are some for teenage students and for older
ones ( some are repeated on both pages).
