Family Feud for Language Learning

There's nothing like a little healthy competition to get adult language learners involved in class! Well, maybe chocolate, but for now we'll stick with competition. And what makes competition even better? When the students themselves have influence on the material!

I discovered this several years ago while teaching Spanish at The Pennsylvania State University. I had always created review games for my students on a regular basis, but until then I had always based the content of the games on what I thought the students should study, or on what would be covered in the exam. Makes sense, right? Well, at PSU I decided to take a new approach, I used the reports generated for me by the students' online homework to identify areas where students were committing the most errors, and I based the content of the Jeopardy-style review games on those areas. The students responded very positively to this new approach.

So, what has this got to do with Family Feud? Well, in Family Feud the content of the game comes from a survey. This is actually why I have normally avoided creating Family Feud-style games, because creating them requires involvement from more than just myself. And, as anyone who has tried to get volunteer assistance knows, it's hard to come by.

This semester I wanted to give it another go, so I had my students themselves complete the survey. This way I could more or less assure that the spirit of volunteerism would prevail. Moreover, I was able to make participation in both the survey and the game itself pedagogically relevant. Here's how I did it with the content from our textbook chapter that covers the arts (vocabulary) and hypotheses (grammar):

Preparation:

1.      Generate list of questions for students to answer. The questions should use the target vocabulary but should not use the hypothesis structure. An example can be found here. You should give the students a few days to complete the form.

2.      Collect the students’ answers and determine which answers are the four most common for each question. For ties, google the results and order them according to the number of hits.

3.      Generate a question using the hypothesis structure for each item (I personally made sure to never repeat any verbs). Fill out the FamilyFeud PowerPoint template with these questions and the ordered answers.

4.      Print out an answer sheet using the option to print nine slides per page.

Execution:

1.      Divide the class into groups of around four students. All students should put their textbooks away.

2.      Open the PowerPoint but leave it in “Normal” mode (do NOT enter “Presentation” mode.)

3.      Randomly pick a group to go first.

4.      Read the question.

5.      The group can discuss and then one student must answer using the hypothesis structure. (The student who answers for each group should rotate throughout the course of the game.)

6.      Limit the time each group has to answer to one minute.

7.      If the student answers with one of the answers (check the answer sheet) delete the appropriate rectangle and give that group the number of points indicated on the rectangle.

8.      The next group then gets a chance to answer the same question.

9.      Continue until all groups have had a chance to attempt to answer the question or until there are no answers left to reveal.

10.  The group that answered second is now asked the next question. This way you rotate which group gets to go first with each question.

11.  When you run out of time and/or questions the game is over and the group with the highest score wins.

Results:

1.      I used this activity in the spring of 2014 with my SPN 610 class. My students responded very positively to this activity! They were very excited and engaged, and were especially excited to see whether their personal answers had won a rank in the game. I also noticed:

a.       Students were often eagerly asking each other what different vocabulary words meant.

b.      At the beginning of the game many students were having difficulty with the hypothesis structure, but by the end they were using much better and with little/no help.

c.   Unlike what often happens with my activities, there were no students who were not actively engaged in this game.

2.      During the spring of 2014 I also shared this activity with my colleagues who were also teaching SPN 610. One of them sent me an email letting me know that "My class loved the game!", and another referred to me as “Family Feud” with a big smile on his face when passing me in the hall. I take this as evidence that this activity worked with more than just my class.