South African Gambling Game

Nicky Furniss

When I first moved to Junior High School I was faced with having to perform numerous introductory lessons about South Africa and myself. But from past experience I had realized that the students retained very little from mere lectures, and so for the South African portion of my lesson, my JTE and I devised this more interactive way of teaching the students about my country – they loved it, and many of them still remember the quiz answers, almost 2 years later.

PROCEDURE:

1. Divide class into 5/6 groups with between 4 – 6 students in each. Give them 2 minutes to think of an English team name and write the names on the blackboard.

2. Hand out worksheets (1 to each student) and a set amount of fake money to each team (in this case I gave each team 10 x 10 Rand notes, to give them each a total of 100 Rand, and in explaining about the money, they also learned about a different aspect of South Africa).

3. Explain the rules of the game. [The ALT will read a question. For each question there are a number of multiple-choice answers (written on the worksheet). The team will have 1 minute to deliberate and decide (as a group) which choice is the correct answer. ALL members must write down the group’s choice in the ‘answer’ column of the worksheet. The team must also decide how much money they would like to bet. The minimum bet is 10 Rand, but there are no maximum bets (this makes it more fun later). Again the students must all write the group’s betting amount in their ‘bet’ column].

4. Begin the game by reading out the first question. While the students are deliberating, walk around to make sure that they are working as teams and that bet amounts and answers are written down.

5. When it appears that most groups are ready, shout “Money, money, money!” and each group needs to hold their betting amount in the air (this makes it easier to take it if they lose and is also a good way to assess whether all the groups are ready, plus my students love the sound of it).

6. After each question, do an answer check using the maru/batsu Ping Ponger (adds an element of fun). Teams should then update their cash amount in the ‘totals’ column on their worksheets. Ask your JTE to walk around and collect the bets from the losing teams, and to give out money to the winning teams (equivalent to what they bet).

7. While your JTE is doing this, explain the reasoning behind the answer to the question (it was during this portion of the lesson that I was able to explain more fully about different aspects of South Africa, using props and pictures pertinent to each quiz question).

8. At the end of the quiz, ask each team to add up their winnings (or losses) and then write the totals up on the board and announce the winners.

NOTES:

1) This was a very effective and fun way for my students to learn about South Africa, and because most of them knew very little about the subject it put them all on a similar level. I have, however, used this game very effectively to review past lessons, but in these cases, be more careful when making groups to ensure that a variety of different ability levels are represented in each group.

2) For money, I photocopied actual South African money, but if you do this, make sure to change it quite obviously in some way to ensure that it is legal and above board (it can’t look like real money, even if it’s only in black and white). For each class make lots of extra money to be able to pay out winning bets, but it’s also good to put in one or two tricky questions along the way, so that you’ll be guaranteed to win some spare cash back, plus it has the added bonus of keeping the students interested and challenged.

3) Allow teams who lose all their money to continue playing and betting (if they lose again, they just record their losses as minus amounts, but if they win, they can get themselves out of the red). This ensures that no one is excluded during the game, plus it’s fun to watch the big spenders get themselves into huge debt and then somehow claw themselves out again!

HANDOUTS and WORKSHEETS:

The worksheet for this lesson can be found here: http://storage01.pbwiki.com/f/SA_Gambling_worksheet.doc