Tic-Tac-Toe: Setting Discussion Goals.
The Idea: Select random conversation / discussion topics and assign them to random squares on the grid. One team is ‘O’ and the other team is ‘X’. In order to claim a square the student must make a sentence if it is a vocab item, or in this case use it as a prompt to talk about a topic.
This is a very low-prep activity and it can be done on a whiteboard/blackboard with a few different colour markers/chalk.
Or it can be done on a piece of paper with the students coming up with questions that can be peer checked before playing.
Draw a 3×3 grid and write the questions you want to discuss. The game can be played in pairs (one person discusses or answers the question) or in a group of four (two teams of two. Each team has a discussion to claim a square.)
With 9 questions or topics, there are plenty of discussion goals that will keep the students talking.
Another way to play the game is to prepare a handout.
The benefit of preparing a handout is that you can produce several different versions of the Tic-Tac-Toe game, so that each pair/group will have different discussion topics.