Teachers are good at asking questions. We do it all day long. “How are you?” “What is the date?” Who is ready?” “What do you think?” and many more! Questions are the one way to keep a conversation going but normally the one practicing their questioning skills is the teacher. One way to help students practice their interpersonal skills is by an activity that teachers in my district call “ASK, ASK, SWITCH.”
1.) Write a question for every student in the class (something to do with your current unit/review from last unit/ crazy opinion questions) and put each question on it’s own notecard.
2.) Give every student a notecard.
3.) Let the mini-conversations begin.
4.) They now ASK and answer, ASK and answer, and SWITCH questions and move to a new partner.
Language guru Bill VanPatten said something like this… We get better at the very things we practice.
Give your students lots of opportunities to ASK different questions to different people and time to ANSWER them too!
(The more unique and goofy questions you have the better!) Have fun!
What a fun idea! I can’t wait to try this in my classes.
I never thought about how it could work for other subjects. Let me know how it goes! 🙂
Love it! Would you mind sharing an example or two of some “crazy” questions?
Megan is the queen of this, but I’ll try!
Do you like to dance with your grandma?
Do you like to eat broccoli with warm milk?
Is this game mostly intended for Yes/No questions then? I think I’ll try it for a few things, but I wonder if that’s where it succeeds most.
It depends on the proficiency level of your students. Yes/no questions are good for novice speakers, but I make them more challenging as they progress (either/or, who, what, where, why, etc).
I like the name Ask, Ask, Switch. It’s less stressful because we call it Quiz, Quiz, Trade I have set these up w/a TL definition on one side and the vocabulary word on the other. To get around “no” English, I have the students ask in the TL for the cognate of the tough words. It’s fun to do this activity to TL music just like musical chairs. I love the classes that start dancing as they move. They definitely stay on task.
I’ve tried this activity as well but I call it quiz, quiz, pass because I got it from one of the science teachers at my school and that’s what they call it. I used it when I taught high school. I haven’t used it in a while and tried it with my middle schoolers earlier this year. It was utter chaos! It was also a gentle reminder that this activity requires explicit instructions the first time it is used. 😂 I need to sit down and figure my life out before trying it again.
I love to do this with would you rather questions.