Review Activity for an Advanced Language Course

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Clarissa

April 12, 2012

I came up with this great review activity for an Intermediate or Advanced language course that I wanted to share.

The activity takes two class hours. In the first session, students create a final exam for the course in pairs. You give them a list of grammar topics and vocabulary they have to cover, and they create their own exams.

In the second session, they exchange the exams and each group completes an exam prepared by the other group. Then, they hand the completed exam back and the group that created it reads and grades it. They discuss the mistakes together and come up with a correct version.

I just tried it, and the students totally dig the activity. It is very creative, fun, and it also lets them appreciate how much work I invest into creating their graded activities.

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6 responses to “Review Activity for an Advanced Language Course”

Ol.

April 12, 2012

As an educator, I am too much of a control freak to create such an innovative activity. It is a great idea, but I just can’t. The best I can do is recycling my student’s essays and written tasks into grammar activities.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  April 12, 2012
  
  But it allows you to do little and places the burden of creativity and hard work on the students. Isn’t that what we want? To reduce our effort? 🙂 🙂
  
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  1. Ol.
    
    April 12, 2012
    
    I agree, but going through the spelling mistakes in the exam my students created requires more effort than creating an exam myself.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      April 12, 2012
      
      No, you don’t have to grade or correct the exams. They grade each other’s work.
      
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David Bellamy

April 12, 2012

I have sometimes put on a final exam the following: Pose, and solve, a problem which you think illustrates what you have learned in this class, and which you believe would have been a good problem for this final.

But I have not done this in the last few years, since it seems that it is unfair to students who thought I had already picked the best problems and put them on the final.

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Bola

April 13, 2012

I think I will borrow this idea for my next class. The difference is that I am not teaching a language class. My students are future teachers of Englisch and my class is on corpus linguistics. So I teach them how corpora can help them to improve their own English. Moreover, they learn how to use corpora as a resource for new teaching material and as a tool in data-driven learning.

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