What is a sentence Auction? A sentence auction is an engaging and versatile ESL activity that works well with teens and adults. It can be used to review language or as a diagnostic tool to see what language students are having problems with. It’s also a low prep activity. If you are not already doing grammar auctions, they are a great tool that you should add to your teaching toolbox. If you have done some auctions previously, read on as there might be a few tips you haven’t considered before.
What is a Sentence Auction?
Like a regular auction, a sentence auction has groups of students bidding for something – and in this case they are bidding for sentences. Some sentences are correct while others have mistakes. A group can win the auction by buying the most correct sentences.
Sentence auctions are often called Grammar Auctions by others in the ELT field. However, this title narrows down the use of this activity unnecessarily, as it is also a great way to check students understanding of collocation. Collocation is how two words tend to be used together at a high frequency. For example, we say ‘make a phone call’ rather than ‘do a phone call’.
When to Use Sentence Auctions
Sentence Auctions can be a fun way to do some diagnostic testing to see what errors your learners tend to make. Perhaps you want to see which grammar points they have a firm grasp of, or which L1 errors are persisting. Doing a sentence auction at the beginning of semester can be informative and therefore help you flesh out your syllabus with relevant rather than redundant lessons.
Sentence auctions are fantastic review activities, so you could use them anytime you want to review language points. I find them most useful to use them midway through a course. I will often do them before and midterm exam. This allows me to do a mid-way review, check the progress my students are making, and focus on any tricky language points students might have on the exam. It’s also a fun activity that can lighten the mood right before the stress of midterm exams.
Preparing Your Sentence Auction
One of the great things about sentence auctions is that they can be as low prep as you like. All you need is a list of sentences – some correct and some incorrect. If you want to go to town, you can make a PPT with all the sentences, and then repeat the slides with annotations for the feedback session. One caveat is that by the end of the auction, you want all 15 sentences on the board as well as space to keep track of each groups money and purchases. Therefore, if you have limited board space in your class, you may want to prepare a PPT instead.
How many sentences do you need though? I recommend 15. Of these 15 sentences I recommend having 7 correct sentences, and 8 incorrect sentences. Having an odd number of correct sentences makes it less likely the auction will end in a draw. An auction with 15 sentences, the set up and feedback included, will probably last 40 mins to 50 mins.
If you want to see some example sentences from one of my general English classes, click HERE.
Use Sentence Auctions with a Variety of Classes
The versatility of sentence auctions makes them shine in the context of ESP. Woah, what’s Extra Sensory Perception got to do with anything, you ask? ESP – English for Specific Purposes is a catchall term used for more specific areas of ESL; Business English, Medical English, Aviation English and so on. These subjects have a lot of specific language that should be used in context, as well as word forms and collocations that need to be used correctly. Such courses can often be quite dry and serious. For ESP classes I consider sentence auctions to be an essential activity.
If you want to see some example sentences from a Business English classes, click HERE.
For example sentences for a Medical English class, click HERE.
Setting Up the Auction In Class
OK, you’ve got your 15 sentences, how should you set up the activity in class?
- Write Auction on the board. Ask students if they know what an auction is. If they don’t you can explain it is a way of buying things – usually when something is unique or there is a limited number. I find it useful to point out eBay is a kind of auction as all students know what eBay is.
- On the board, write Sentence in front of Auction. Tell students they are going to be buying sentences. There will be some good sentences, and some sentences with mistakes.
- Get students in groups. Leaving enough space on the board to write all 15 sentences, draw a column on the board for each group. Add their group name sat the top of the columns, and leave a bit of space to write the number corresponding to each sentence that they buy. Below that write £10,000 / $10,000 / €10,000 or whatever your preferred currency is. Tell them this is all they have, and they have to try and buy as many CORRECT sentences as possible with the money.
Start the Auction
- Start off with a correct sentence (it’s good to have one that is obviously correct to start). Write it on the board. Get your auctioneer hat on and pick up your gavel (a marker pen works pretty well). Begin the bidding at £10. With the first sentence, there may be some reluctance, so be patient and cajole if necessary. If there is still no interest, drop down to £5 but do not go below.
- If there is still no interest. Declare no bids and move on. Reiterate that to win, they need to buy sentences.
- When a group wins the bidding, write the number of that sentence under their group name, and update the amount of money they have left.
- Make your way through the sentences, writing them on the board, and encouraging the bidding. You can have a lot of fun playing the part of the auctioneer encouraging students to bid against each other. Flex your acting muscles and ham it up for comedic effect.
The Morning After
After all the excitement, it’s time to go through the sentences and see who has won the auction; which group has the most correct sentences. Go through each sentence one by one, ask the class if the sentence is correct, and if not, what is wrong with it. If the sentence is wrong, erase the corresponding number from that group’s column. When you have gone through all sentences, you can pronounce the winner.
Observations
One of my favourite things about a sentence auction is when two or more groups get caught up in a bidding war – it can be quite a rush. And when they are fighting for an incorrect sentence, it can be quite hard to keep a straight face. One thing I have noticed is that in some classes a certain type of student, usually the laziest and most disinterested of the class, comes alive during the sentence auction. They are the ones that take charge and confidently try to out bid their competitors. It’s always great to see these students suddenly get involved and engaged in the class, and after spending thousands of imaginary pounds on an incorrect sentence, I think they might actually learn something too.
Hold Your Own Sentence Auction
Now you know how and when to do a sentence auction, try one out with your own classes. Let us know how it goes in the comments below.
If you are interested in more review activities, you might like to check out ‘Top 5 Review Activities for Adult ESL Classes‘. If you’d like to stay up to date with teaching tips and ideas for your ESL classroom, as well as new teaching resources, why not sign up to our mailing list?