The Sentence Auction (classroom activity, 30-40 minutes)
Before class you will need to prepare 10-15 sentences utilizing whatever grammar and/or vocabulary you have been studying in class. Some of the sentences will need to be correct and some incorrect. Don’t make any errors that are drastically obvious. My advice is to write 3 sentences with common grammatical mistakes (e.g. wrong tense usage), write 3 with very minor mistakes (e.g. slight misspelling of one word), and write 8-10 sentences that are correct. If you have access to a projector put the sentences on a ppt. If not you will have to write them on the board, which will add about 5-10 minutes to the class.
Put students in teams of 3-6, have them make up team names, and then explain the rules.
Note: Telling them the Chinese word for auction will be very helpful in explaining these directions (Pai Mai)
Every team starts with $200. Write every team’s name on the board with “$200” written below each name. Explain that you will show them a sentence. If they think the sentence is correct they want to buy it; if they think the sentence is incorrect they don’t want to buy it. After you put up a sentence and students have a moment to examine it you can start the bidding at $1. Conduct the activity just like a real auction (“going once, twice, sold to team 3 for $50”). Subtract the amount of the winning bid from the teams $200. Once they reach $0 they can’t bid anymore.
It will also help to explain some strategy before you start. Tell them that you might want to bid on a sentence you know is incorrect. Another team might think that the sentence is correct because you are bidding on it. That way you can get other teams to spend their money on wrong sentences.
After all the words are auctioned off go through each one and give a point for each correct sentence bought. If there is a tie give the victory to the team with the highest amount of remaining money.
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