My Life as a Game Show Host

As previously mentioned, I spend most of my class time playing games or making my students participate in various amusing and somewhat simple activities. Since I had to conduct performance exams last week, and final exams are coming up in a few weeks, I decided that this is a good a time as any to introduce the students of Seoul Robotics High School to the magical world of Jeopardy.

My version ended up as sort of a poor man's Jeopardy only because I try and keep things as simple as possible with my students. So there was no Double Jeopardy or Final Jeopardy or mid-game contestant intros or Trebeck one-liners. Plus, the questions were actual questions, not answers. I did feel the need to add a final Jeopardy round, but then it got too confusing when I tried to explain the concept of a wager. Thus, Final Jeopardy didn't last very long. Essentially, my version of Jeopardy consisted of seven categories with five questions in each one, ranging from 100-500 points each. The categories were America, Capitol Cities, Sports, Spelling, Puzzle, Music, and ?????. The students got really excited about the random category. After I would draw the question marks on the board, the students would all go, "OOOO, WHAT IS THIS?" I would always respond the same way, with an obnoxious shoulder shrug. Then I would get something along the lines of, "OO COOPAH, YOU A TRICKY TRICKY MAN." 

One of the things that really amazes me about my students is the intensity with which they compete for one small piece of candy. All I have to do is say, "Oh yea, and the winning team gets candy" and the place goes absolutely wild. The best part is, I never have to police the classroom. Students will gladly rat on each other if they see the slightest sign of cheating. They also enjoy swearing at each other, screaming, slapping, and falling out of their chairs when they get a wrong answer.

The best part of playing Jeopardy all week has to be the answers that I got from some of these kids. One of the questions was "What is the largest state in America?" Most of the answers I got were either California or New York, mostly because these are the only states that the students could think of on the spot. However, I was really happy when one student shot up from his desk, hand in the air, and shouting, "ME ME I KNOW I KNOW." Based on his reaction, I assumed he had the right answer. So I point to him and he replies "LAS VEGAS" with absolute confidence.

A few weeks ago I was surfing this ESL teacher's forum to try and get some ideas for a class I was teaching on tenses. The only good piece of advice I found was from a guy who suggested that, whenever you play a game involving teams, always allow the students to come up with their own team name, as opposed to just saying "team 1, team 2, team 3, etc.." So I decided to give this a shot and it ended up being very amusing. A lot of my students, especially the younger ones, are shy and/or apathetic. So when I say, "Ok, each team come up with your own name...in English," they often just sit there, staring at me blankly. I quickly put an end to this by deciding that any team that did not create their own name would get a name chosen by me. As soon as I began to write "The Pretty Flowers" or "Team Ajumma (Korean grandmother)" on the board, they changed their tune very quickly.

Some of my favorite names:

Team Spam

The Piccolos

Michael Jackson

Genius Monkey

Team Uhh

Sex Machines (not accepted)

Sexy Team (revised name of the Sex Machines)

Terminator

Cooper Team

Not surprisingly, Jeopardy was a great success, despite the lack of educational value.