The Blue Key

[nomadxx]

I was recently asked to develop an activity to get kids speaking
English all day at school. After looking at the Principal in a strange way
I went off and thought about it.

I struggled to come up with an idea as the task wasn’t easy.

Anyway I must have been blessed because an idea came to me and it
worked brilliantly.
School very impressed, kids had a lot of fun and more English spoken
in playground than at any time in my last two years here.

BLUE KEY DAY

I brought 10 blue aluminium key blanks. Nine were plain one had
yellow flowers on it. That was the “Special Key”.

The idea was to write 5 questions
Eg What is your name?
How are you today?
Who is your English teacher?
When is your birthday?
Do you read English books?

Questions were posted up around the school.
9 students and one teacher were secretly given a blue key. To get the
key from then students had to ask the secret question which was one
of the five mentioned above. “When is your birthday?
However they also had to ask for the Blue Key after every question.
Eg What is your name/ My name is Ming/ do you have the Blue Key/ No I
don’t

Eventually someone would say When is your birthday?/ its in February/
do you have the Blue Key./ Yes I have the key….they then had to hand
it over.
DO KIDS CHEAT …Yes but they spoke English all day and the keys
changed hands hundreds of times. At the end of the day the kids with
the blue keys took them home. At the assembly this morning the kids
with the blue keys came on stage and received a small pize. The
student with the special key received a “special prize”

One kid ended up with two keys and got two prizes.

I have to do it again in two weeks so all I need to do is change the
questions it may be a food theme. Eg What did you have fior
breakfast? What is your favourite drink.
This was a very successful activity and the school was buzzing

[Duncan Powrie]

What a great idea! I love the idea that the "proof" that they've been using English changes hands, and earns them a prize...and the whole implicit "unlocking English/opening doors" metaphor.

Incidentally, did (m)any of the kids who were originally secretly given the keys still have them at the end of the day? If so, that would imply they had wanted to keep the keys and earn themselves a prize by cheating...but I guess this didn't happen, judging from your "happy hamster" tones. Good!:D

[nomadxx]

I was initially worried that this might happen but no kid given the key at the start won a prize. We asked at the assembly how many children had the key in their possession at some time during the day. (Hands up). The school has 500 kids and it seems about 60 kids had the key in their possesssion for a period of time.

[Duncan Powrie]

I was initially worried that this might happen but no kid given the key at the start won a prize.

I came up with the same "solution" to the potential problem of cheating when I first read your original post, but I was worried that one then might end up with a poor little honest kid (who'd willingly given his or her key away - not to a "deserving" pal - and later earnt a totally different one back through hard work in using English) bawling at the back of the hall as the prize-giving ceremony unfolded.

But again, the hamster is still happy, with nothing of the sort to report; it was unlikely that a key would actually pass through the same grubby little hand twice in a school of your size, so your solution/safeguard worked fine! Don't fix it if it ain't broke etc.

[nomadxx]

I guess if the prizes had been Sony Playstations I could have had a problems. Prizes were old English Movie posters I got from video rental store. Prize for magic key a small koala bear. Hong Kong people collect stuffed toys. Most cars here full of them. Teachers desks crwded with small stuffed toys.

[Duncan Powrie]

You cheap b*stard (apologies if you are a woman).

Still, what's wrong with stuffed toys. I'm building up quite a collection myself in my apartment here. I actually had to "rescue" three very cute (and identical) little brown bears on three seperate visits to my local supermarket (the three of them, and then the remaining two, then finally the one, kept looking imploringly at me from their sales basket). It was either that, or report the store to the animal welfare people. Disgusting, piling fluffy little creatures like that on top of one another, and not feeding them!

Maybe I should move to HK?

[Duncan Powrie]

helow, ai um da furst kyoot bare dat dunkan got. hee iz awt now so ai kan yoos heez konpyooter. wee bares callekt stuffy hoomans! he he!

[nomadxx]

Grant wrote

I was up in Guanzhou on the Friday holiday and came across a set of
19 miniture skulls carved from petrified wood or bone. When I read
about the Blue Key game I thought it would be a great language
activity for Halloween and the skulls were a perfect substitute for
the keys. I numbered each skull (1 - 5) and told the kids they can
ask 3 of the 5 Halloween questions. They have to ask 'Have you got
the Halloween head?' after each question and if one of the 3
questions they asked is the same as the number on the bottom of the
skull the student who has the skull has to hand it over.

I left the selection of the student to the class teacher and I've
kept one myself so I can kick the game off at morning recess by
asking students to ask me the questions.

It's a great idea but I think I should have spent more time priming
the teachers and getting them to understand the game. Perhaps they
could have taken one of the skulls to class to show the kids and
explain the idea before we began today. I've stuck the questions up
all over the school but I'm not sure this will be enough.

Well we'll see what happens today. I'm a little worried that the
kids will want to keep the skull rather than hand it over for the
prize.

--- In [email protected], wrote:

Thanks for that Tom.
Just a little more clarification. I was just going to let the
children decide what question they wanted to ask, but it seems that
you could only get certain keys if you asked a certain questions.
Perhaps you could post the 'rules' of the game you played then I
can use them to prime the staff before we play the game.
Thanks
In [email protected], > wrote:

The students were picked by the SET. The keys were also numbered
with a black marker and one of the rules was that a student given
a key in the beginning could not claim a prize with that numbered
key so they needed to find another key.
Also you mix up the questions so not each key is handed over with
the same question. This stops kids "discovering " the question
and just asking one question. We had five questions buy only two keys changed hands with each question.

In [email protected], > > wrote:

Great idea- I am sure there are a lot of people who would love
to volunteer their principals for the game!
Just a couple of questions though - how did you distribute the
keys secretly and also how did you stop the person who had given up
the key just asking a question back?
In [email protected], > > > wrote:

Hi Ann
Pleased that you have a way of using it. The Christmas idea
is great.
We have a new one running for halloween. We give ten students
a pint of blood. Forcibly taken from Sherri's principal. Kids ask
the same principal "are you a witch?" "are you a monster?", "are you a
ghoul?" etc Then they say "Trick or Treat"
If she gets question wrong we burn her at the stake.
In [email protected], wrote:

Hi Tom,
Just thought I'd let you know about how we are going to
adapt your blue key idea for Christmas. Instead of a key we are going
to give Father Christmas shapes. The children will ask a question
about Christmas like What do you want for Christmas? What do you
eat at Christmas etc and then ask Have you got the Father
Christmas?
The staff are really keen on the idea so thanks a lot for
thinking of it - hope you haven't got the copywrite but I will buy you
a drink next time I see you!