The Application game.

A few weeks ago I read Ian Pryer’s excellent post on developing application – the Fuzzy Duck application game. As we have just started the new academic year, I thought I would start the first lesson off with a slightly different version of the game with my A2 students and it proved to be a very useful exercise.

I split the class into groups of two or three and gave them each ten minutes to answer the question, which was “Explain why a motivated workforce might be important to XYZ Ltd” . As far as they knew, all groups had the same question. However, each group had a different statement before the question, telling them what type of business XYZ Ltd was. I had six different examples, including a clothes retailer, airline, television manufacturer, washing machine repairer, chocolate bar manufacturer, and a fast food restaurant.

When time was up, I collected them in and explained that I was going to read out their answers to the class. The rest of the class had to guess what type of business XYZ Ltd actually was. The first answer I read out was an excellent answer in terms of knowledge and analysis but the rest of the class had no clue as to what XYZ Ltd actually did. Of the six examples, only one had excellent application and two others had one brief reference to what the business actually did.

It certainly made an impression on the students and now I look forward to better application over the course of the year!