Well my daughter and I are now obsessed with Pointless (5.15pm BBC1 each weekday, celebrity special on Saturdays) and it turns out (following many tweets during Saturday evening's celebrity special starring Brian Blessed) that many of the #MFLTwitterati love it too.
If you haven't seen Pointless before, here's how it works. Usually, with quiz shows, the idea is to rack up as many points as possible in order to win. In Pointless, however, the lowest score wins. With the scores being based on a survey of 100 people, it's a bit like backwards Family Fortunes. Each game comprises four rounds and the first round begins with four pairs of players. (My daughter and I decided that we would apply to be contestants, but I found out that you have to be 18, so she is disappointed.)
First round: Players are given a category, such as "Songs featured in We Will Rock You" and they have to give the answers that they think are the most obscure and will therefore score the fewest points. Each pair gets to answer twice. If any answer is wrong, the pair is awarded the maximum 100 points. The highest-scoring pair at the end of this round is eliminated.
Second round: A category is chosen, such as "Volcanoes and their countries". The contestants are shown the names of 6 volcanoes (for example) and have to name the countries that go with them, always trying to predict which one has the lowest score, or, hopefully, a pointless (or zero) score. Each pair answers once, then 6 more volcanoes (in this case) are revealed and each pair answers again. The highest-scoring pair at the end of this round is eliminated.
Third round: Two pairs are now left for the head-to-head, which is a "best of three" round. The first question is a picture question. The contestants are shown 5 pictures of, for example, "Film Directors". Each pair names correctly the one that they think will have the lowest score, and the pair that chooses the lowest-scoring picture wins one point. For the next question, contestants are shown a category, such as "Cities with airports named after famous people", and the initials of the famous people are given. Again they have to choose and identify correctly the one that they think will have the lowest score, and the pair that chooses the lowest-scoring answer wins one point. If a third question is needed, 5 facts about a famous person or something like wine are presented to the contestants. They have to choose and answer correctly the question that they think will have the lowest score. The pair that chooses the lowest-scoring question wins the final point.
Fourth round: The final round is for the final pair left. They are presented with a question and have one minute to come up with 3 answers. Their aim is to find a pointless (zero points) answer, without which they will not win the prize money.
So I'd been thinking about how to make it work for the classroom when I read a tweet from Paul Collins, currently doing GTP Maths, who has been making Pointless work in Maths. We exchanged tweets and he gave me some useful advice (thanks Paul!)
Last Saturday I set up a 10-question survey on SurveyMonkey, and asked Twitter to help me to compile 100 responses. Less than 12 hours later, the survey was complete. Because I am too stingy to fork out for the Survey Monkey upgrade, I had to count all the responses myself, which turned out to take a long time! Then I typed them up in Word and, if necessary, found some more answers so that there would be some pointless answers. For the famous person, author and artists questions there are many more possible pointless answers.
I don't think you could get a whole lesson out of playing Pointless, but it would certainly make for some good starter activities, and would oblige students to think a bit harder than usual as they will have to find the most unusual, potentially pointless, answer. The first seven of my questions are in English and have an intercultural focus. These would be good as "first round" questions and perhaps "third round" questions if you used photos or initials. Questions 8, 9 and 10 are about months, days and numbers, and don't have any pointless answers. A good twist could be to get students to make the lowest-scoring date using the months, days and numbers.
What I can't think of is the best way to present this in class. Below you'll find the answers to the 10 questions in low-tech Word form - please feel free to download and use.
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts and any ideas for other questions that could be useful.
Pointless 1
Pointless 2
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Pointless 8
This is a great idea. Would love to hear how it goes when you do use it in class. I'm wondering whether it would be something I could use with PGCE students - I'll let you know if I do use it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the coolest blog post ever, I wish you were my MFL teacher when I was at school!
ReplyDeleteI actually came across your blog while googling for images of Pointless - I'm doing a write-up on my website about when me and my girlfriend applied to go on the show! If we make it on there and they ask us a question about French-speaking countries, I shall remember this! x
I have played Pointless with my Yr6 French group, but instead of playing against '100 people surveyed', they played against each other. So, for months, if they were the only person to write down mai, they got a Pointless answer. If 5 of them had the same answer, they scored 5 points. I used it as a way of revising vocab they had learned, so we used body parts, colours, months, days and so on. They loved it!
ReplyDeleteThat's a top idea, and so easy to prepare. Thanks Student ramblings!
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