Jeopardy!

I introduced my class to an all-American favorite today.  We finished chapters 1 & 2 in our text book, so to review all our material and have some fun we played Jeopardy.  

The kids really liked it.  I had them divided up into teams of 4, and our categories were Places, Free-Time, Jobs, Daily Life and Grammar.  Some questions were straight-forward, for instance, "These directions are the opposite of North and West."  Others were more interpretive, like, "This is a place where you can go for a walk or have a picnic." (I accepted multiple answers for this one-- in fact one from every team, taking everything from "a jungle" to "a mount(ain).") All in all, I think it was worth yesterday's "push through it" attitude.  I had nothing but smiling students on their way out and they did a great job remembering our material!

To introduce this American phenomenon, I explained that Jeopardy is a game show like some that they know.  Turkey's most popular game show is "Anlat Bakalım"--essentially the board game Taboo, but on TV, the one I watched some of two days ago is "Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye," which is exactly like "America's Got Talent" only maybe only for kids??  Check out this link, I found it today: Turkish Reincarnation of Michael Jackson 


Anyway, I explained that Jeopardy is a game show and that you can win lots of money playing it.  To prove this point and to show them how the game works, I played a beginning of Ken Jennings' first show. Then, I told them that he made over $2 million dollars playing Jeopardy...checking now, I see that he actually won over $3 million. Wow. Now that's a motivator to earn English, if I've ever heard one.
After playing the Ken Jennings clip, I said that Americans really like Jeopardy...especially older Americans, like my grandparents! :-) However, this game is also important to young people and is part of our culture more broadly.  Evidence: this hilarious SNL skit.  (I love all the characters in this.  Well played, SNL.) I wasn't sure if my students really understood everything in this--which is just fine!--but they did chuckle at how crazy Sharon Osbourne is, how goofy/rhyme-y Bill Cosby is and...Sean Connery's eyebrows? Anyway they liked it and were well primed for their own round.

Cultural sharing success. Love you all!
-Annika