Quizlet Live with a Twist…Relay and Communicating

My students LOVE Quizlet Live and who can blame them? They beg for it and with the craziness of March with state testing, Le Grand Concours, Manie Musicale and the amount of snow days we have had this month, I have given in many times, but not without a lot of thought.  Inspired by Joshua Cabral’s and SRTA Spanish blog posts on the subject and the recent discussions listened to on my favorite language podcasts (Inspired Proficiency, Language Latte and We Teach Languages) on task vs activity, practicing vs communicating, I have given the use of Quizlet Live much thought.  I highly suggest you read these two blog posts and try creating some of these sets or types of Quizlet Live activities yourself.

Yes, my students are assigned sets of vocabulary to work on at home as I do not give traditional homework such as worksheets and the like.  It is great for retrieval practice and allowing them to learn the vocabulary of their own choosing at their own pace.  However, I am now also creating sets that require them to communicate and think when using them, especially in the game Quizlet Live.  That is to say, I am creating sets that are questions to match to possible answers or sets that require a lot of thought to figure out the answer. This made me more willing to play Quizlet Live in class as now I know students are doing much more than recalling meaning, they are working towards communicating.  I can’t wait to try all the ways mentioned in these blogs to make a student favorite a much more communicative activity.  My goal moving forward with this type of Quizlet Live activities is to get them to STAY IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE!

This past week, students played with a set that contained family questions such as “How many people are in your family?” “Who do you resemble?” “Where do your grandparents live?” and the like and possible answers. Via Quizlet Live, students were getting lots of repetition. Students had to work together to shout out questions and figure out the possible answers. I decided to try some of the variations of Quizlet Live I have seen on Twitter, that involved a lot more movement and set the game up relay style. Huge hit. I’ve attached videos for you to see these unique ways of playing.

 

To view videos, you will need to go to my YouTube chanel

Quizlet Live Relay version 1

Quizlet Live Relay version 2

(NOTE: I forgot to film students using the Q&A sets and you will see students playing using regular vocab sets-sorry!)

As soon as we were done, we moved into playing a circle chair changing game with students in the center calling out the questions seen in the Quizlet set and seated students holding strips of possible answers, more possible answers than were in the original set. Students with possible answers would then shout out the answer(s) if they had it, while quickly traded places with someone who also had a possible answer.  Meanwhile, the student in the center raced to get a seat too.  After this practice activity, students walked around interviewing as many classmates as they could about their families,  asking and answering the questions using their own truthful information to respond. A step closer to communication. I listened and took notes too so that we could play a guess who type of game via Kahoot.

By the time class was done, students really knew and had PRACTICED the language. My next step is to move students from practicing to communicating about family.  This week I will group students and be give them fake identity cards containing fake biographical information which describes him/herself as well as other family members.  Students must share the information with his/her group as well as ask and respond to questions in order to complete an incomplete family tree and figure out their family.

Do you have any variations of Quizlet Live you can share? Do you have any more ideas on how to make Quizlet Live more communicative and task based? I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Please share!