A Guest Post by
by Deborah Altenbeck, OStR’
(NIG Bad Bederkesa, Germany)
Teaching literature or a foreign language is always a pleasure if you know that students enjoy spending time with novels and books. I’ve found a game called “Bring your own book“ on kickstarter.com quite some time ago and have used this as an activity in the classroom ever since.
In Mathew Moore’s “Bring your own book“ you are given a prompt, such as “Something that Arnold Schwarzenegger would say“, “A sentence from a fortune cookie“ or “A phrase used during first contact with aliens“ and have to quickly find a passage in your book that matches the prompt. You need to think outside the box and utilize creativity, as well as reading skills (skimming and scanning) to find an adequate line as quickly as possible. As soon as one person yells “stop“, the others have a minute left before results are read out and a winner is chosen.
After explaining the game and playing one or two rounds, I always like to set up groups which compete against each other. So I would choose a prompt and ask students to find something. Then I would include an extra step: Group members read their ideas and choose their favourite passage which then will be read out loud for everybody to hear. I always repeat their lines emphasizing it even more. Sometimes I would even make up a little story or situation which is always a good laugh. I might choose several winners if I like more than one idea.
Once they get the hang of it, students love this game. It is a fantastic activity if you have a few minutes left at the end of the lesson. Also, you can spend a whole lesson on this game as this is time well spent. As this game requires a good understanding of the foreign language, this is not a game for beginners. It can even be played using textbooks or basically anything that looks like a book (I have never tried a telephone directory though - might be a challenge…).
The game’s website with a free print and play version can be found at:
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