Paper Clip Challenge! Fun way to learn about important facts of the English Language!

Challenge your students to play this true or false cool activity while they have the chance to enhance their knowledge of the English Language.

How to play: Give each student a strip of paper with a sentence (like the examples 1-10 below) and they keep it to themselves. After, students take turns to roll a dice and the first one to get a six will start the activity. This student will read his sentence aloud for the whole group. Students hide a small object like a paper clip in their right hand if they think the statement is something true and in their left hand if they think it is something false. After checking who got it right or wrong, the student who began the activity will choose the next one to read his statement and the activity goes on and on. The activity is very student-centered and empower students because they will be the ones to say if what they have read is true or false and not the teacher. The teacher will just act as a facilitator to guarantee the timing, organization and success. This activity will take tops 15 minutes!

1.   English is spoken today in all continents. (T)

2.   It is spoken as a first language by 370 to 400 million people. (T)

3.   The number of second language speakers and foreign language speakers is the same.(F)

4.   Brazil speaks English as a second language.(F)

5.   India, Kenya and Singapore use English as a second language.(T)

6.   English is the working language of the European Central Bank, although the bank is in Germany.(T)

7.   In Asia and the Pacific, nine out of ten international organizations work only in English.(T)

8.   The river name Thames, meaning dark river, derives from Old English and no one is really sure of the reason for it.(T)

9.   In Old English, there were no capital letters. (T)

10.Some names for the days of the week come from the names of gods and goddesses.(T)

Reference: Oxford University Press, The History of the English Language.