School Subject Preferences Information Trading

Overview

School Subject Preferences Information Trading is a great way for English beginners to build basic speaking and listening skills.

Students can be introduced to this game after memorizing as few as 12 vocabulary words and 5 sentence patterns.

This activity type is available in different versions that can be completed in pairs, small groups, and large groups.

Each Information Trading Form is designed to record 216 data-points, as the activity includes 18 characters (Ann, Bess, Kim, etc) x 12 school subjects (biology, geography, math, etc). Each form comes with some of the data-points already filled in, while others are blank and need to be added by the participant.

Survey-taking activities like these are a classic example of an information gap activity. 

In addition to providing an opportunity to vocabulary recognition practice, this activity is also VERY useful for phonics encoding practice (see notes below).

Printing

Simply print the needed amount of Information Trading Forms on normal white printer paper.

There are 5 versions of this activity available.

• For 2 Participants: The first version is designed for use by partner-pairs. Both of the 2 included Information Trading Forms already has about half of the 216 data-points.
  
  

Both of these 2 forms have about
50% of the activity's 216 data-points

• For 3-6 Participants: The second version is designed for small groups where minimum number of participants will be 3 and the maximum will be 6 at the most. For this version Information Trading Forms A, B, and C each come with about 1/3rd of the 216 data-points already printed on them. The remaining 2/3rds of the data rectangles are blank and will need to be filled in with checkmarks and crossmarks by the participants.
  
  The other 3 Information Trading Forms (each marked with a +) also have a random set of about 1/3rd of the 216 data-points.

Each of these 6 forms have about
34% of the activity's 216 data-points

• For 4-8 Participants: The third version is designed for small groups where minimum number of participants will be 4 and the maximum will be 8 at the most. For this version Information Trading Forms A, B, C, and D each come with about 1/4rd of the 216 data-points already printed on them. The remaining 3/4ths of the data rectangles are blank and will need to be filled in with checkmarks and crossmarks by the participants.
  
  The other 4 Information Trading Forms (each marked with a +) also have a random set of about 1/4th of the 216 data points.
  

Each of these 8 forms have about
25% of the activity's 216 data-points

• For 5-12 Participants: The fourth version is designed for class groups where minimum number of participants will be 5 and the maximum will be 12 at the most. For this version Information Trading Forms A, B, C, D, and E each already have about 1/5th of 216 data points. The remaining 4/5ths of the data rectangles are blank and will need to be filled in with checkmarks and crossmarks by the participants.
  
  The other 7 Information Trading Forms (each marked with a +) also have a random set of about 1/5th of the 216 data points.
  

Each of these 8 forms have about
20% of the activity's 216 data-points

• For 10+ Participants: The fifth version is designed for large class groups where minimum number of participants will be 10 and the maximum will be around 50. For this version Information Trading Forms A to J each already have about 1/10th of 216 data-points. The remaining 9/10ths of the data rectangles are blank and will need to be filled in with checkmarks and crossmarks by the participants.
  
  The other 14 Information Trading Forms (each marked with a +) also have a random set of about 1/10th of the 216 data-points.

Each of these 8 forms have about
10% of the activity's 216 data-points

• This version allows for up to 24 participants to each have a unique Information Trading Form, but if there are more than 24 participants, a copy of the same Information Trading Form can be given to 2 or 3 participants, as it is almost certain that by the time any participants with (initially) identical forms encounter each other during the activity, they will have already collected additional data-points from other participants and their forms will no longer have 100% matching information.

Download and print a sufficient number of forms for the version of this activity best suited to your anticipated groups-size(s).

Preparation (One-Time Use)

After printing, you may use the forms as is. However, this means that each one will only be able to be used for a single round of the activity.

Preparation (Re-Usable)

To make the Information Trading Forms re-usable, laminate them and then have game participants use erasable whiteboard markers to add character preference information to the forms.

After each round of play, the added markings can be erased and the cards re-used.

How To Play

Groups: The method of game play is the same regardless of number of participants. Each participant will be provided with a Information Trading Form that has only a portion of the activity's 216 data-points (18 characters x 12 school subject preferences). Each participant must ask other participants questions in order to add the missing information to their own form (and also answer questions asked of them by other activity participants).

Materials:

• Information Trading Forms
• Pens/pens/whiteboard markers
• Clipboards (or anything else that will allow participants to add information to their Forms while in a standing position)

Time / Game Round: 10-40 minutes

• Provide an Information Trading Form to each activity participant. They will need a pen or pencil too (or a whiteboard marker, if the Information Trading Forms are laminated).
  
  Each Information Trading Form is marked with either a letter (A through J) or a + symbol. It is very important that all of the forms marked with a letter are distributed to participants.
  
  This will ensure that at least activity one participant has each of the 216 information data-points needed.
  
  The + forms are optional. Each provides an additional random distribution of a some of the 216 data-points and allow for a flexible number of participants to be part of the activity.
  
  
• Participants should be advised that the information their Information Trading Forms is secret and can only be communicated verbally. They are not allowed to show their forms to each other (as this would defeat the purpose of this speaking activity).
  
  
• Once the activity begins, each participants should approach other participants and ask them one of the five following questions (with a school subject of their choice inserted into the blank):
  
  "Do you know who likes  _________________ ?"
  
  "Do you know who doesn't like  _________________ ?"
  
  
  
• (As a second option, participants could also ask each other "Which school subjects does _________________ like/not like?" with character name inserted into the blank.)
  
  
• The Information Trading Forms use checkmarks and crossmarks to show which school subjects each character likes and doesn't like.
  

• When asked a question, participants should use on of the following sentence patterns to reply:
  
  "_________________, _________________, and _________________ like  _________________ class."
  
  "_________________, _________________, and _________________ don't like  _________________ class."
  
  The blanks at the beginning of the sentence patterns can be filled in with character names and the blanks at the end of the sentence patterns can be filled in with a school subject.
  
  i.e. "Dan, Jen, and Tess like chemistry class."
  
  

Note: Although 3 blanks are shown for character names in the two sentence patterns above, in reality, the sentence patterns may need to include as few as 1 name and possibly as many as 12 names.

• If a participant is asked a question they cannot answer (due to not having the necessary information), they can respond with the following sentence:
  
  "I don't know."
  
  
• Participants can add checkmarks and crossmarks to add missing information to their own Information Trading Form. 
  
  
• It is up the classroom teacher/facilitator to decide when to end this activity. The activity could continue for a specific number of minutes (such as 20 - 40 minutes, even if none of the Information Trading Forms are fully completed)
  
  or
  
  the teacher/facilitator could decide to end the activity when a certain number of participants have filled in all the data-points on their forms.
  
  
• After completing the activity, it may be productive to have the students check their answers against each other's forms or against the available Answer Key (see downloads).