Jeopardy is a popular American television game show where contestants must answer questions on general knowledge clues in the form of answers and respond in the form of questions. I have used this game before for students practicing Spanish, so from experience it is a competitive game. Jeopardy is challenging, fun, and very useful for practicing a language. My students are very competitive with each other, so this is a healthy way for them to practice their English and compete amongst each other. The learning objectives I have taken from this Jeopardy set I found online. They will practice Anglophone capitals, name three things based on the given word/phrase, numbers, nationalities, US vs UK English, and prepositions. I personally constructed an online game through this website. Even though I do not teach my students English (I teach art and drama in English), these are all concepts I see them struggle with on a daily basis.
This game covers practically all of the four linguistic skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking; however, it is most especially reading and speaking. Team members have to read the question posted on the digital whiteboard, write down their answers on a sheet of paper, listen to the question read aloud and the answers of their opposing teams, and say out loud their answers as well. It is a challenging game, but my students have a good foundation of English already.
When I did the game in class, I had expected that they would be challenged by the high level of English vocabulary, but for the most part they performed very well. I also expected that controlling the volume of the students would be a challenge, and it certainly was. Because my students are so energetic, I was constantly reminding them to lower their voices. I did not expect that the classroom would become so hectic by the end. Moreover, I did not think about how some teams were able to answer more questions than others, which is also a rule I've forgotten from the original Jeopardy game. Every time a team got a question incorrect, I would let the next team go to see if they got the question right. However, that meant that they had more chances to get more points when others did not. Next time, I'll have to think of a better way to let other teams answer questions.