Lesson Share: Team games: Who wants to be a millionaire?

• Can be applied to any multiple-choice exercise
• Can be used as a warmer or filler
• Can be used for correcting homework multiple-choice exercises
• Particularly good for light relief in an exam class

I teach a lot of exam courses and many of the test formats such as IELTS and Cambridge exams use multiple-choice exercises as in the popular TV show 'Who wants to be a millionaire?'. The activity simply makes the process of checking multiple-choice exercises more fun and is good for keeping tired students going.

Procedure

Ask the class if they have ever watched the TV show 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' (Very popular in many countries!).

• Elicit from the students the rules of the game.
• Tell the students that they are now going to play the game.
• Explain how they are going to play the game in class: Every student starts with a £1000 pounds and for every correct answer the student doubles their money.
• If a student isn’t very confident they have the option of not playing for that particular question (but they can still stay in the game for the next question).
• Keep a track of each student’s progress on the board.
• The winner is the student with the most money at the end of the game.

Variations

• I don’t use '50/50' or 'phone a friend' or 'ask the audience' but you could adapt the game to use 50/50 if you wanted, ('phone a friend' might be a bit difficult and 'ask the audience' wouldn’t be appropriate).
• I allow students to stay in the game to keep everyone involved but they lose their money if they get the question wrong. You could change the amounts of money won.
• You could get a student to act as record keeper for each student and ask for a summary of who has got how much money at the end of each round.
• Students could work in pairs but they would have to agree on each answer before giving the answer.