Set-ups

Select JazzQuiz via adding an activity on the LMO page. The same one activity can be used unlimited times throughout the semester. Teachers only need to give each session a different name when launching, and then select ‘improvise’.

Procedure

Step 1: For reviewing grammar:

When teaching a new grammar structure, such as “把”, teachers often provide various examples and call on a few students to apply its usage. However, it’s hard to gauge the understanding of every student in class. In addition, it’s difficult for teachers to predict all possible errors from students.

With improvising, teachers can perform several actions in class, and ask students to submit sentences describing these actions using the new grammar. As a result, teachers can have an overall view of students’ comprehension and provide customized follow-up feedback.

For typical errors, teachers can also use the voting feature which highlights two responses among all sentences received. This provides a focused analysis on students’ self-constructed responses, which is both engaging and effective.

Caveats and Alternatives

 For pre-prepared in-class quizzes, Kahoot or Poll Everywhere are more attractive with their design of energetic music and bright colors design.

Additional Information

In addition to a quick 5-min activity during the seminar, improvised JazzQuizzes can also be used to conduct longer in-class quizzes based on printed resources, such as textbook exercises or exam papers from past semesters. Students can submit their answers via cell phone while referring to the printed materials. Teachers can make sure all students submit their answers, and provide instant feedback without the heavy workload of digitalizing quizzes. (In-class quizzes are not to be confused with out-of-class exercises, for which effort is necessary for digitalizing materials with automated feedback.)

Set-ups

Students and teachers need to have their own MS Office account to access Teams. This can be centrally set-up and administered on an institutional level before being used as a regular in-class feature and a smart campus resource. See the attached Microsoft Teams Quick Start Guide for more details.

A repository/bank of GIF (or JPEG images) is also essential. Teams has an inbuilt word specific bank of vocabulary-based GIFs. That said, you can also devise your own themes, topics and images if suitable options are not found. You many also want to try different key word searches (e.g., Antarctica, South Pole) and, occasionally, slight misspellings (i.e., Antartica) in order to find a picture you like.

Procedure

Step 1:

The class is divided into groups

Note: Smaller groups are encouraged as these promote greater participation and engagement and decrease the possibility for technology to be misused.

Step 2: 

Each group has a tale to tell. Tales might be allocated in a specific way words are in Pictionary.

Step 3: 

Groups brainstorm how to tell their story, potentially by designing a simple storyboard.

Note: This can be done online in breakout rooms (which are randomly assigned or preset by the teacher).

Step 4: 

Groups choose images to retell their story to others.

Note: Groups should only select pictures at this point and not actually begin posting them. 

Step 5: 

Groups take turns to post their GIFs on the General Teams Channel.

Step 6:

The viewing group, or groups, try to guess the correct story in a limited number of turns or timeframe. They can precede guessing by asking (yes or no) questions. This stage involves turn taking.

Note: To avoid returning to the breakout rooms if running this activity remotely questions can also be raised as the story is being told via the chat/conversation function. This is also useful if the audio quality falters.

Step 7: 

 As an extension activity, earlier hand drawn storyboards can be shared with all at the very end of the activity on the General Teams page and presented to see how closely story plans aligned with GIF tales, providing additional opportunities for discussion, Q and A and, ultimately, productive language output.

Caveats and Alternatives

Additional Information

Microsoft Teams Quick Start Guide

Set-ups

Teacher selects topics, designs questions, and puts them into the Gold Miner PPT.

The example PPT below contains a set of speaking questions. You can adapt them to suit your lesson content.

Procedure

Stage 1:

1. Teacher puts students into pairs.
2. Teacher chooses a nugget on the PPT and shows students the question.
3. Teacher gives students 30 seconds to prepare.
4. Students take turns to answer the question and give feedback to their partner.
5. Teacher monitors and gives feedback.

Stage 2:

1. Teacher divides the class into 4 teams.
2. Teacher asks one student from each team to choose a diamond on the PPT and shows them their questions.
   Teacher gives students 30 seconds to prepare.
3. Teacher invites one student from each team to answer the question and directs other students to focus on different aspects of the answer (e.g. structure, linking words, examples, etc.).
4. Teacher elicits feedback from students and provides their own suggestions.

Stage 3:

1. Teacher chooses a box on the PPT and shows students the question.
2. Teacher gives students 30 seconds to prepare.
3. Teacher randomly invites one student to answer the question and asks other students to focus on different aspects of the answer.
4. Teacher elicits feedback from students and gives their own suggestions.

Download

Click the link to download example ppt:

https://readytotell-xjtlu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Gold-Miner.pptx

Set-ups

Teachers should have access to and be familiar with Marking Mate via:

• http://writingtools.xjtlu.edu.cn:8080/mm/markingmate.html
  OR
• http://www.readingandwritingtools.com/mm/markingmate.html (for users outside China)

Step 1: 

Prepare a short text that breaks a number of standard rules of academic register. This text should be provided to students electronically so that they can later copy and paste it into Marking Mate. However, you may want to first distribute hard copies of the text for the initial discussion and analysis.  You may want to also have a “corrected” version of the text on hand for later comparison.  Sample non-academic and academic texts are provided in the ”Files to download” section.

Step 2:

Prepare a list of common academic register conventions as a handout (electronic is fine). An example of this is in the ”Files to download” section.

Step 3: 

Students should bring a piece of writing they have been working on (preferably already typed on the computer).

Hardware requirements:

• Teacher: computer; projector (for demoing Marking Mate)
• Students: laptop/tablet + internet connection

Procedure

Step 1: 

Introduce the idea of formality and academic register in writing. However, at this stage it is not necessary to go through all the conventions in detail.

Step 2: 

Put students in groups of 2 – 3 and distribute the hard copies of the non-academic text.  (Alternatively, use the electronic version, but a hard copy may be easier for group annotation at this stage.

Step 3: 

In groups, students should read the text and underline instances of what they consider to be informal or non-academic registers. Then, they should discuss how they would edit the text to make it more academic.

Step 4: 

Now groups should use the electronic version of the text. Instruct groups to open Marking Mate and copy/paste the text into the Marking Mate box (Marking Mate Step 1). Ask them to adjust the settings in Marking Mate Step 2 and uncheck all settings that are NOT in the Academic Style section so that you can focus exclusively on register problems. Then they should click the button in Marking Mate Step 3 to check the text.

Step 5: 

Students compare the results from Marking Mate with their own initial analysis. Show students that they can use the mouse to hover over a red-highlighted word to find out why it is considered non-academic along with suggestions on how to change it. They can also click the word to get more explanation and advice on a separate page. Allow students to ask questions and/or ask students what were some words and phrases that Marking Mate highlighted that they had not identified in the initial analysis. 

Step 6: 

Students now brainstorm and write a list of academic register conventions based on what has been highlighted in Marking Mate. This could be done in groups or as a whole

Step 7: 

Distribute the list of standard academic register conventions and allow students time to read it and compare with their own list.

Step 8: 

Students now re-write the non-academic text by applying the advice from Marking Mate and the list of rules. Afterwards, students can be given the “corrected” version of the text for comparison.

Step 9: 

Students check a piece of their own writing for academic register problems. First, they should apply the rules themselves and then check with Marking Mate. Groups can discuss how to fix the problems that were identified and then make corrections.

Step 10: 

Lead a discussion about proofing tools that students regularly use, and discuss the pros/cons (for example, see caveats below). You may want to also point out additional features of Marking Mate such as the ability to check spelling, grammar, and highlight repeated words.

Caveats and Alternatives

Writing correction tools, such as Marking Mate, the grammar checker in MS Word, and Grammarly, are not 100% accurate:  they may at times miss errors, misidentify a problem, or give poor or faulty advice. These tools are often designed with native English speakers in mind and may miss common mistakes made by English learners. Students should use these tools with caution. Having said all that, Marking Mate was designed with English learners in mind (specifically, Chinese university students) and the software is programmed to identify common register problems that the designers (two EAP teachers) had often seen in their own students’ work.

To demonstrate the above problem, in Step 10 above you could point out some informal words in the sample text that Marking Mate missed.  For instance, in the sample text above, Marking Mate does not highlight “Well,” in the third sentence.

Students should also be advised that academic register conventions are to some extent subjective; different teachers and departments may have different ideas about what language is considered appropriate for academic writing and conventions may vary according to the task. In the Settings in Marking Mate, the user could adjust the settings to conform to the conventions appropriate to the writing task. For example, personal pronouns may be accepted in some tasks so that box could be unchecked in the settings. 

Additional Information

• Academic register conventions – list of 10 guidelines
• Sample text (a short paragraph) with both non-academic and academic versions

Set-ups

• Teacher needs to have the Kahoot set ready before a class*.
• Prepare copies of the Harvard Referencing Guide (prints or PDF) for each group of students. Recommended group size: 2-3 students per group.

Hardware requirements: 

Teacher: computer; projector; (Firefox and Chrome work better than IE)

Students: any device that connects to the internet (laptop/tablet/smart phone)

*The Kahoot set in this activity is designed for Anglia Ruskin University’s Guide to Harvard Referencing style of Referencing, used by IBSS at XJTLU. The guide is available below for download. Students will need to learn the skills of how to use any kind of reference style guide, so it’s OK for them to use this particular one as a practice. However, if a different guide is preferred, be it a paper/PDF/online version, you can duplicate the Kahoot set to your own inventory and tweak it to fit your guide.

Procedure

Step 1: 

Introduce Academic Integrity and referencing.

Step 2: 

Put students in groups of 2-3, and then distribute the Harvard Referencing Guide to each group.

Step 3: 

Show Kahoot set play mode, and guide groups to join the game . 

Note: Choose “Teach” – “Team mode” for this activity (image 1). Under “Team mode”, only one student in the group needs to connect their device to this game (image 2).

Step 4: 

Play through this Kahoot set. Since this game is meant for teaching and learning, check results and students’ feedback for each question. Explain when necessary (image 3).

Note: Questions 4, 6, 8, and 12 are designed to teach students to locate information in the referencing guide. Both answers will be marked as “correct”. Teacher needs to check if there are teams who select “HELP!!” or couldn’t answer in-time, and offer guidance when necessary. Follow-up questions (5, 7, 9, 13) are designed to check if they can actually find the specific information needed in those scenarios.

Image 3

Caveats and Alternatives

Internet connectivity issues in the classroom may cause disappointment when completing this activity. Playing this Kahoot game in “Team mode” can minimize the risk of running into this issue since it only requires half (or even less) of the students to use the WiFi in the classroom. Having students play it in groups can also lower their anxiety of getting the correct answers without losing the incentive to win.

If the internet is consistently unreliable in your classroom, you can assign the Kahoot set as a challenge to your students before the class. Choose “Assign” to play this Kahoot, and set up the timing for completion (image 4&5). When the challenge is set up, you can email your students the PDF reference guide (attached below in Additional Information), this challenge link, and your customized instructions for this activity.

You can manage the challenge and check students’ progress before your class, and review the difficult questions in class if necessary (image 6&7). 

Additional Information

• Kahoot set for Harvard Referencing Guide
• Harvard Referencing_2016.pdf