Activity

Sentence Auction

In this game, teams want to buy as many sentences as they can with their budget. But some sentences are fakes! You can practice any sentence structure or grammar topic by playing sentence auction.

While I haven't gotten to try this game in class yet, it sounds really fun to play! Put the students into teams. Each team has $3000 they can spend on buying sentences. The team with the most sentences at the end wins. However, some of the sentences are "fakes" or they are gramatically incorrect. These sentences don't count towards winning, so teams have to be careful not to spend their money on fake sentences.

The sentences can be based around any sentence structure or grammar point, so this activity can be really versatile. It's also good for end of the unit/year review because you can include a variety of different sentence and grammar points.

Full instructions can be found in the attached lesson plan and the basic instructions are introduced in the powerpoint. The powerpoint can be edited to change the sentences and there are multiple sentence slides with different backgrounds and art to keep it feeling fresh.

The instructions for this game might be a bit confusing at first depending on the English level of your students, so it might be good to have the JTE help introduce the activity. Once the game gets started though, I don't think most students will have any trouble following along.

Files:
Small files
  • Sentence Auction Lesson Plan.docx (8.8 KB)
  • Medium files (requires an account to download) -
  • Sentence Auction Powerpoint.pptx (25.7 MB)
  • 9
    Submitted by mitchkat1 February 16, 2022 Estimated time: 20-25 minutes
    1. HTemple February 24, 2022

      The slides are really nice! I just tried this activity today with some variations and I had a rough time. I told the class how many sentences there were, in hopes to get them to plan their money and not be afraid to bid, but in both of my classes, students refused to participate. By the end of the game, there were maybe 2-3/6 teams who hadn't spent any money. I need to find some way to encourage them to spend!

    2. crisxselda February 24, 2022

      This looks really fun. I hope you don't mind, I'd really like to try this concept with ES lessons.

    3. rachaelmb1995 June 21, 2022

      I think I'm going to try this game with my second year middle school students! I was thinking that maybe in order to get them to participate on correcting the incorrect sentences, I'll give them some incentive by offering $100 back or to whichever team is able to correct the mistake. Just as a suggestion if anyone else wants to try this method!

    4. Aleiobot July 8, 2024

      Played this with one of my 3rd grade JHS classes, and they enjoyed it. Most teams bid at least once, some bidding quite often. I tried to give them an incentive to bid by making the sentences worth money. They would make back double whatever they bid. So if they bid $500 for example, they would make $1000 instead.

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