Purpose: To learn about your students, for classmates to learn about one another, to, practice listening skills, build vocabulary and conversational skills.
Activity: Each day interview 2-4 students, depending upon interest level in the activity and the length of the conversation. Have students take notes about the conversation on this student recording sheet. Continue throughout the year with topics you would like to reinforce, keeping the focus on topics that are of interest and worthwhile for developing communicative skills
Formative/Summative Assessments: You can give students a formative, open notes assessment periodically or at the end to encourage good listening and note-taking. It could count as a homework or quiz grade.
You can also have students discuss the questions on the 2nd page periodically with varied partners. This provides formative interpersonal speaking and listening information. A final assessment could be an interpersonal assessment where students are asked to talk about the topics in the activity with a partner and sustain a conversation as long as possible. The key questions are in large font on page 2, with minor questions in smaller font. A version with English prompts is on page 3. Sample Open Notes Quiz
~Amy