During one unit with her 11th graders, ETA Darby Jones introduced the game Four Corners to teach students about making and responding to suggestions. For this activity, each corner of the classroom represented an opinion: strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. Darby would read a scenario and an accompanying suggestion. Examples of such scenarios and suggestions are, “Your best friend is getting married, but you think their fiancé is a very bad and mean person. You suggest that they cancel their wedding and break up with their fiancé,” or “Two students in your class do not get along together and are not friends. You suggest that instead of working out their issues, they do not talk to each other and ignore each other.” Students would then decide how they felt about the statement and walk to the respective corner.

Once students were in their corners, they would collaborate as a group and present their reasoning. Darby was very impressed with the thoughtfulness of students’ responses. It was a great opportunity for her to learn more about how her students think, discover more about various Indonesian perspectives on certain social and personal matters, and have her students build confidence with spoken English. Students loved the opportunity to get up from their desks and move around the classroom. Their competitive spirit came out and many reveled in crafting a better argument than any other corner. It was a great learning experience for all!

Darby Jones is currently teaching at SMAN 2 Sangatta Utara, East Kalimantan