Monday, May 11, 2015

Who is It?

This is a great listening activity to do at the last 10 minutes of class, and it involves whiteboards - like bacon, in my opinion, everything is better with whiteboards! 

Planning
1)  Write 3 VERY short comprehensible descriptions in Latin of famous people (characters, historical figures, or real people), where the first description is most general and the third is most specific, i.e., by the third description, it should be obvious who the character is

Activity
1) Have students grab a whiteboard and dry-erase markers.
2) Have students number 1-3 on their whiteboards.
3) Explain to students that you are going to read a series of descriptions and after each description, they should write the name of the person/character whom they think it is. All three descriptions are about the same person/character.
4) Read the first description, and next to number one, have students write whom they think is the character/person.
5) Read the second description, and next to number two, have students write whom they now think is the character/person. If they think it is the same person/character as what they wrote for number one, they are still to write down that name.
6) Read the third description, and next to number three, have students write whom they now think is the character/person. If they think it is the same person/character as what they wrote for number one and two, they are still to write down that name.
7) After reading the third description, ask students “quis est?” and have them respond aloud. Ask them to hold up their whiteboards so that you can see their series of answers.
8) Start again with a new person/character.

Examples:
Beyonce
1) femina
2) cantatrix
3) uxor JayZis

Laocoon
1) Troianus vir
2) sacerdos
3) interfectus a serpentibus

Observations
  1. This is a GREAT way to review characters if you are reading a story with lots of characters.
  2. This is a wonderful, low affective filter, output activity, since it just requires students to write down the name of a character/person.
  3. Because it is such an easy listnening activity, I have found students to be very engaged whenever I have done it.

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