🔓 Unlock Better Conversations: New "Questions Unlocked" Game!

Hello CoolEnglish teachers! 👋 Welcome to this week's blog post.

This week, we are super excited to share a brand-new activity designed to tackle a very common challenge in the ESL classroom: question creation. 🗣️

Let's be honest, creating good questions is hard! Even native speakers sometimes struggle to ask the right questions to keep a conversation going. We often see English learners overusing simple, direct questions (like starting every question with "Do you...?") simply because it is easy and feels safe.

We want to help them level up! By giving students new options and a fun way to drill them, we can help them create more diverse, interesting questions. That is exactly why we built Questions Unlocked - Conversations Edition.

🎯 The Goal

To help students practice asking different types of questions instead of just direct yes/no questions. Because better questions = better conversationalists!

📋 How It Works

We’ve made it incredibly easy to set up and play in your classroom:

1. Pick a Topic & Level: Start on the home screen and choose an engaging topic like Food & Restaurants, Travel & Vacations, or Technology. Then, select your class level:

   • Beginner: 3 question types

   • Intermediate: 5 question types

   • Advanced: 8 question types (Bonus: You can even change the level on the fly during the game!)

2. Review the Patterns: Need to teach the grammar first? Tap the "Meet the Question Types" button or click the colored label on the left side of any game card. This opens a reference screen showing the grammar patterns and examples for every level (e.g., About You, Preference, Life Experience, Hypothetical).

3. Challenge the Students: Each card on the screen shows a question type with a hint. Ask your students to come up with their own unique question that fits the category.

4. Teacher Controls: You have two buttons on each card:

   • Tap ✔ when a student forms a great question! The card flips green, and the class score goes up. 🏆

   • Tap ▸ (or ?) if nobody can think of one. The card will flip and show a great sample question.

5. Keep Playing: Use the New Round button to instantly shuffle in fresh examples for the exact same topic!
   

🛠️ Extra Tools for Your Classroom

We added a few extra features to make this activity fit perfectly into your lesson plan:

• ⏱️ Timer: Turn on the countdown to add a little pressure and keep the activity moving!

• 👁 Reveal All: Want to do a quick review? This button flips every card on the screen at once.

• 📄 Print Classroom Worksheets: Taking it offline? On the home screen, you can print PDF worksheets where students can write their own questions and their partner's answers. Perfect for homework or quiet in-class practice! ✍️
  

💡 Teacher Tip: Don't reveal the example until your students have tried first! The cards are meant to be conversation starters, not the only "right answer." Let them get creative!

Ready to get your students talking? Click here to play Questions Unlocked now!

Have a great week of teaching, and let us know how your students like the new game! 🍎🌎