Of all the PowerPoint games I use with fancy backgrounds and cool sounds my favorite is by far the auction. To create the slides for this game is really easy, so pay attention.

All you need is a "cover slide" that says auction. Make sure you take enough time to explain to your students how an auction works, because if they "get" it, they won't play it right. I've used eBay as an example for students to model the principal after.

After the cover slide you just need to have easy to read slides with words or sentences on them.

Please keep in mind that holding any kind of auction requires a lot of energy on the teacher's part: meaning you. You'll have to talk a lot and depending on how involved you get into the game you might loose your voice, so take it easy. Students look up to a teacher who gets involved in teaching, moves around a lot, smiles and laughs. This is just the kind of respect and communication you want to have with your co-teacher as well.

I used the auction for a model teaching class last year. We auctioned off correct and incorrect sentences to the students in grade 2 High School. They would bid on a sentence they read off the board and hope that it was correct. If it was, they would get 2 points. If it was wrong they would only get 1 point. Because I handed the students a sheet with all the sentences that would be auctioned off in advance, they could plan their strategy.

Since we had 49 students in the class (big class, I know) we broke students down into teams of 7 and had them all sit in a row. Most Native English Teachers group students so that their desks form a square and they're facing each other. While this might work with smaller quiet classes of timid or shy students, in high school you can't let students get too rowdy. In my case, putting them in a row regulated the noise level too.

Students like having team names. If you let them choose their names you'll lose precious time you could use auctioning off sentences. I had my school laminate color printed flags on 8.5x11 inch sheets of cardboard paper. If your school has a big English budget you can also buy a wooden hammer and a bell. You'd slam the hammer down when bidding for a sentence is over. Just say "SOLD" as you slam the hammer down. You can use the bell to signal to students that bidding has now begun for the current sentence.

Dan teachers Native English Teachers how to survive in Korea by cooking, giving and being loving at their schools. Join his free newsletter: http://www.survivalinkorea.com