Marker Partner PLUS (a fun variation of Marker Partner)

In May of 2014, I wrote a blog post explaining The Marker Partner game. It is a fun way for the teacher to check student comprehension after listening to a story or after reading a text and to provide additional input through listening. Earlier this fall, I created a variation of the game that goes one level deeper into checking student comprehension and holds the students more accountable in earning points for their team. I'll refer to it as the Marker Partner PLUS game.

The set-up for the game is identical as for the Marker Partner game. Divide the students into two teams. If you have desks, the students move their desks so they are facing each other with a marker placed where the two desks meet. The students can place the paired desks in a circle formation or in a long row, if your room allows for this. If you do NOT have desks, you can do the activity in the cafeteria and the students sit at the long tables across from their opponents.

Marker Partner PLUS in a classroom w/o desks

Another option, one that I use when I have class during lunch periods and the cafeteria is not available, is to have the students place their chairs in two long rows so they are facing their partners, with an extra chair between them and the marker placed on the chair as shown in the photo on the right.


The students listen as the teacher reads a script of the story they have recently heard or a script of a story that they have read. (Or you can use this with any text, not limited to a story.) The students are actively listening for a changed detail as the teacher reads. When they hear an inaccurate detail, they grab the marker before their partner does. The students on each team hold their marker up and the teacher counts which side has more markers. The team with the most markers earns 1 point. 

Now for the twist. The teacher then chooses ANY student from the winning side that is holding up a marker and that student needs to say WHAT the error was and then must CORRECT the error by restating the sentence, or part of the sentence, with the correct information. The student cannot receive any help from his teammates. If the student can correctly identify the error and make the correction, he earns another point for his team, for a total of 2 points for that round.

However, if the student that the teacher choose to identify the error and correct it is unable to do so, the opposing team can earn 2 points if the student that the teacher calls on from the side that didn't earn 1 point is successful in stating the error and correcting it.

When I call on a student from the team that has the most markers, I always call on a student that is holding a marker. My reasoning is, if the student grabbed the marker, then she knows there was false information. When I call on a student on the opposing team when the first team member was unable to make the correction, I call on anyone on that team, whether they were first to grab the marker or they didn't beat their opponent.

I like this version BETTER! Why? Because the teacher is able to read more than one sentence at a time. I have played this version and read 4 or 5 sentences before I insert an incorrect detail. The students are intently listening for a longer period of time in anticipation for the incorrect detail. The next time I may chose to read only one sentence until I mention an incorrect detail. This keeps the students on their toes because they don't know how long they will need to listen before they grab the marker.

If you and your students like playing Marker Partner, then I predict you will also like Marker Partner PLUS! 

Reviewing the Basics with a variation of the Name Game

Last week we started our second semester with brand new students. I have students in my Spanish 2 class that had Spanish 1 in the first semester, some that had Spanish 1 in the previous school year in the fall or the winter semester, and a few that have not had Spanish for two years.  Because of the wide variety of time since their Spanish 1 class, I use the first few weeks to review the basics of Spanish 1.  

Today I used a version of the Name Game by Martina Bex.  I wanted to review the structures:

   Voy a...   and     Quiero + infinitive

I followed the pattern below:
1. Randomly select a student by pulling a card w/ a student name.
2. First person says WHERE he is going and WHAT they want to do.
(Ex:  Voy al parque porque quiero correr. I'm going to the park because I want to run.)
3. Pull a 2nd name. The 2nd student repeats what the 1st person said (Ella va al parque porque quiere correr) and adds what that person is going to do (Voy al gimnasio porque quiero jugar al baloncesto.
4. Continue with a few more students.
5. Choose two student names. The 2 students repeat what the previous students have said (they can alternate every other student) and then decide where they are going and why. One student says the first half of the sentence and the 2nd student in the pair says the second half.
  Ex: St1 - Vamos al restaurante porque...   St2 - queremos comer hamburguesas.
6. Choose another student. That student repeats all previous comments and uses "they" form of verb for the pair of students.

I limited the activity to 20 minutes.  The students heard lots of repetitions and were actively engaged in listening because they didn't know if their name was going to be the next one pulled.

A variation of this would be to ask students to sketch their answers and then display them as the students give their answers.   
  
 

Review Chapters of Novels with PicCollage App

The goal for language teachers at my school is to read a minimum of 2 novels with the students per level.  I prefer to read a novel in 12-15 days instead of drawing it out to a month or longer.

A good way to review the events of the previous chapter before beginning a new chapter is to make a collage using the PicCollage app.  The app has images within the app that are copyright free, making it quick and easy for the teacher or students to create the collage in a short period of time.

This summer I'm going to shop around to check prices for making collages of El Nuevo Houdini into posters for the classroom.  After reading a chapter, I can then hang the posters around the room.  This will help students to remember the events of the previous chapters.  If a student is absent the day we read a chapter, the other students will have a handy visual to refer to when they explain the events to their classmate(s).

Or..display the poster photo collage before reading the chapter to predict events.  An variation of this is to create a collage with 1-2 photos not related to the chapter and ask students to guess which photo(s) are the imposters.

It also might be a nice way to have a verbal quiz at the end of the book.

Another bonus, hang the posters in the hall to help showcase what your students are learning in class.  Better yet, record a student telling a review of the chapter, connect a QR code to the recording, and post the QR code along with the poster in the hall!  

Active Reading Review - Marker Partner Game

My Spanish 4 class is currently reading the latest book by Carrie Toth called La Calaca Alegre.  We needed to take a break from reading the book to prepare lessons and then visit the elementary schools, so it had been several days since our last chapter.  I used the following activity which proved successful as a review AND as a way to keep everyone actively engaged in the review.

First, we arranged the desks in a circle in groups of two with a marker placed in the middle of the top of the desks.  (The sketch to the right shows seating for 16 students but I had 13 sets of desks to accommodate 26 students. The activity works with large or small numbers.)

Then I used used the activity El Tenedor (The Fork Game) found on Bryan Kandel's website, but made some small changes to the rules and added some (extra) movement by having the students rotate to other seats because I knew that would work well in my class. 

There were two teams: students on the inside were one team, and students on the outside of the circle were another team.

I had prepared 20+ true/false statements in the TL about facts from chapters 1-5.  Then I read a statement to the students.

·      Rules:

1.    True statement: students race to grab the marker and hold it up. The team with the most members holding the marker receives 1 point.

2.    False statement: students do NOT touch/pick up marker. If nobody on the team touches/picks up marker, the team earns 1 point.  (Both teams have the possibility of earning a point.)

3.    If it is a false statement and students on both teams hold up the markers, the team with the most number of students holding the marker loses 1 point.

4.    If it is a false statement and a student touches the marker and then throws it back, the person sitting opposite of them should stand up (without talking). The team with the student that threw the marker on the desk loses 2 points!

5.    After 3 statements, the students on the outside circle rotated clockwise one seat so students had a new person with whom to compete.

   
They loved this review game!  It was engaging, lively, and admittedly a little noisy at times, but sometimes learning is loud.  :-)

Sentence Strips

To review the story "El Robo del Chocolate" I used sentence strips.

1. I pulled several sentences from the story and put them on a strip of paper in the incorrect order. I gave each sentence a letter so it would be easier to refer to it for the class activity. Then I cut the paper into strips. (The students could do this since they are not in the correct order, but for the first time, I cut them so they'll know what to do next time.)

2. The students had to put the sentence strips in order. After they thought they were correct, I told them to check with the person next to them to see if their answers were identical. If so, they stood up so I could see who was finished. If their answers were different, they needed to work together to come up with the same answers.

3. Then we read through the sentence strips together to make sure everyone had them in the correct order.

4. I continued to review by writing a sentence on the board. Students moved their strips apart to make space for where they thought was the most logical place for the new sentence.

5. Finally, I distributed 3 pink strips of paper to each student and students wrote their own 3 sentences on the pink slips and then added them at the appropriate place.

6. The last activity with the strips was for the students to remove their pink slips and hand them to another student who had to put them in their own set of sentence slips.


After doing all the sentence strip activities, I'm fairly certain that the students understand the story and all the vocabulary.

If you have other ideas on how to use the sentence strips, please share them with me and I'll give it a try with my students.

The story script is embedded below: