View Content #28057

This Activity of the Week is based off of a game created by Sarah Serwe, a library professional and French teacher at Vandergrift High School in Austin,Texas. It was written by Michaela Parisi, the author of this week's Topic of the Week.

 “Trio” is a game that can be adapted for many different languages and can be played with language learners of all levels. This simple game increases student vocabulary while enhancing their internal schemata through the classifciation of words into categories and subcategories. Importantly, the grouping of words must be meaningful because the player’s teammates must be in agreeance before announcing their answers. 

Learning Outcomes:

Learners will be able to:

• Use existing knowledge to create robust schemata for target vocabulary words
• Demonstrate understandign of multiple target vocabulary words at once.

Mode(s): Presentational, Interpersonal

Material(s): Trio cards (in French and English)

Procedure:

1. Divide learners into pairs or small groups. These pairs and small groups will face one another as teams. Provide each set of teams with Trio cards (examples in French and English). Each Trio card consists of three words and one category or conjoining word. These words can be interrelated, such as cat, dog, and fish, or part of a larger phrase, such as rise, set, shine. The goal is to find the word that links the three words. In the examples above, “animal” relates cat, dog, and fish, while “sun” relates rise, set, and shine.

2a. To start the game, one person from the first team draws a card and reads the three words. Their teammates must infer the word that relates the three words on the card. If the first team finds the correct answer, they score two points. Then, the second team has 30 seconds to respond in one of the following ways:

1. The second team finds a word in the same category to score a point for their team.
   1. Example: If the first team found the word "animal," the second team may add the word “farm” to score one point.
2. The second team finds a more precise category to score three points for their team.
   1. Example: If the first team finds the word "animal" to unite the three words (cat, dog, and fish), the second team scores three points if they find a more precise category such as “pets.”

2b. If the first team does not find the word after one minute, they pass the card to the second team, who has 30 seconds to find the right answer. If no one finds the right answer after 30 seconds, someone reads the right answer, but no one scores any points.

3. Repeat Steps 1-2 for the allotted time (decided by the teacher).

4. The team with the most points at the end of the final turn wins.

Notes:

After gameplay, teachers may wish to debrief with learners by discussing the cards that were most meaningful and most difficult. This discussion will provide the opportunity for teacher input and clarification.