I first used find someone who when I worked as an ELT. It was always a great classroom strategy to use when you wanted your learners to practice using a particular language function or grammatical structure.
That said, I see no reason why it cannot be used in the mainstream classroom to support the learning of content and to also maximise language output.
Here are some possible ways to use find someone who in the mainstream.
- After reading a text you could get different learners or groups to focus on one particular question or part of the text so that they become experts in it. After this they then have to find someone who can give them the answer to another part of the text that they have been focusing on. In this way they are learning from each other.
- When learning vocabulary, give different learners different definitions and then they have to go around the classroom and find someone who can give them definitions to the other words.
- Learning content – it could be used for any area of content learning with directed questions that learners have to find someone who has the answer. To ensure that learners are giving the correct answers, different students could have different answers to each of the questions.
If you have used this classroom strategy in the mainstream it would be great to hear how you have used it. Please comment!
EAL in the Daylight 