True/False PQAs using "Has"

At this past summer's CI Summit in Cincinnati, I had the privilege of watching Bryan Kandel demo a very simple, true/false purposefully communicative activity. Bryan is an absolutely master communicator, as he made this low-prep activity SO personable and compelling for us. This activity can be found in his book Give Them What They Want: A Guide to Increasing Enrollment in World Language Class, and it is so amazingly simple to facilitate.

1. Create a list of sentences in the target language about different students in your class. The sentences can be anything which is personalized about the students. These sentences can include target vocabulary or language structures. Examples: Joy wants a dog, Amayah has seen the movie Spiderman: No Way Out, Charlene went ice skating this weekend, etc.
2. Project the sentences. 
3. Have students write True or False for each sentence on paper/whiteboards to predict what they think the answer is. Students may not ask the specific students if their sentence is true or false.
4. Review each sentence with the class by asking the student in the target language about whom the sentence is if the statement is True or False. 
5. If students have predicted correctly, they give themselves a point.
6. Continue the activity by asking the student and class extension PQAs in the target language related to the statement.
7. Total points upon completion to determine a "winner".

In my Latin 1's a month ago, I recently did this activity on day 4 of class. Because I was targeting the word "has," I created the following statements in Latin for each of my three Latin 1 classes - yes, because it was day 4 of Latin 1, there were a number of words which I had to gloss for them such as "driver's license," "sister," "brother," and "job".

• ______ has an xBox.
• ______ has a brother.
• ______ has a dog. 
• ______ has an iPhone. 
• ______ has a driver's license.
• ______ has a sister. 
• ______ has a job.

Observations

1. Wow, I was surprised at how well this activity went with Latin 1 students, even with limited vocabulary! What a fun way to learn about each other in the target language!
2. Students were actually engaged in the activity - I think the predicting and running point total added to that.
3. I randomly picked students ahead of time for each sentence, so I personally did not know the answers. Plus, because it was the 4th day of class, I had no idea who the students actually were yet. 
4. This was a great example of purposeful communication, because students were learning about each other in the target language. I definitely learned a lot about them.
5. Extension PQAs seem so natural to do after finding out if the statement is true or false.
6. Students whose names were not used have asked me if we are going to this again, because they want to have a sentence about them!
7. I plan to do this activity again with the word "wants".

Get Bryan Kandel's book, because he has so many great communicative activities in it. Thanks, Bryan!