Everyone knows about the TV show Jeopardy. Surprisingly, your students will also have heard of it. Regardless of their familiarity with the show, they all love playing a simulation in class of the TV show using words they can learn or be quizzed on. Using this game is fun, but can be daunting at times because it's easy to loose control of your students. Here are some tips to get your students to love playing the game even if you don't have candy to bribe them with.

Of course with a little bribery and punishment they'll always do what you want especially if they're fighting for it, or fighting to get away from it. Let's take a look at a few ways to really make your students do as you say, when they're particularly difficult to deal with. This will work best if students are broken down in classes that rank them according to their level. Meaning, if your school divides the brightest students putting them in one class, and the least smart English students putting them all together in another class. Schools in Seoul typically do this sort of thing.

Kids will do almost anything for candy. But what if you don't want to go spending your hard earned money on candy to give away to students who are learning from all your heard work and effort? You can reward them with freedom or punish them with work.

What do I mean by this? Let's say you have a class full of students, and you decide to break them down into two teams. Normally if you were handing out candy you'd want as small of a team as possible so you don't run out of candy too soon. In this case, there are no treats, which means you can safely watch a team win without giving away 20 candies instead of 6, were the teams smaller.

So your classroom is broken down into two teams. In order to motivate students to answer, you can assign the losing team a punishment like cleaning the room, tidying the other team's desks, or having them sing a song. Cleaning the room works best for my classes. I require the losers to sweep my classroom and tidy the desks. If there are more than 6 students in one team I will also make them wipe down the whiteboard and close the windows.

The winning team gets to leave as soon as the bell rings. Naturally students love leaving the classroom as soon as possible, so this is enough for them, especially if they're the winning team. They're most likely already excited about winning and will be clapping to celebrate. I've played this game in high school 4 times. Imagine high school students getting excited, they really do, which shows you how much impact you can make on students, even in middle school or kindergarten.

When you're playing a game, especially in high school it's important that the game is as educational as possible. Students should be forced to read, think on their own and speak out loud the correct way. For example, if a student shouts out "three-hundred money" don't go on without making them saying "three-hundred-dollars" the right way. Students learn better when they're playing a game; if you accept mediocre results, they won't learn as much.

Organizing the PowerPoint Jeopardy template is up to you. You can find the template on Google. The game works best when you're testing the students based on 4-5 categories, each with about 5 problems. Don't forget to check with you co-teachers asking them what students are learning this week so you can incorporate your game with the things they should be studying. This will help students learn making them love you more. It will also help your co-teachers out; Co-teachers always need as much help as you can give them since they have so much additional paperwork, forms, teacher consultations and extra class time.

Overall, Jeopardy keeps students focused on the game and they learn a lot of English because they're in the right state. Ultimately, if the state your students are in is positive most of the time you can expect them to learn, love you and have fun. This all makes you life very easy.

Dan teachers Native English Teachers how to survive in Korea by cooking, giving and being loving at their schools. Join his free newsletter: http://www.survivalinkorea.com.

[Edited by Administrator (admin) Wed, 06 Jul 2011, 06:34 PM]