Beat the Teacher!

This is a very useful activity that can be used as a starter, plenary or for the main body of a lesson. Very, very simple concept but highly effective. The activity basically involves giving students a page of written text about the topic just covered (if used for a plenary or starter for the lesson after) which contains a number of mistakes. Students work individually or in pairs to try and spot the mistakes. This is also excellent for differentiation, for example, some of the 'mistakes' may be just matters of opinion rather than obvious errors therefore allowing analysis and evaluation to take place.The errors can range from the obvious and the stupid to the more subtle. I have even given out a sheet with not one single error on it, however, because the students expect to find mistakes, they concentrate whilst they are reading thus consolidating their learning. One thing though, review is vital otherwise some students may take the ‘errors’ to be fact. This activity can also be used for a main body. I once did it for a topic that I hadn’t formally ‘taught’. I gave them the page of text containing errors and in pairs they needed to find the mistakes using some source material (in this case a textbook). Using it this way is good for particularly dry topics. Takes some preparing this one, but once you have a ‘bank’ of ‘beat the teachers’ you’re at the races.