Golden Bell

Golden Bell is a very popular game here in Korea. It's a big quiz game with the last man standing theme. the students sit in rows with enough space on each side to curb any cheating. They all must listen to questions and quietly write the answers in short answer form. They are written in dry erase marker on mini white boards. So why do they use NETs for this? To test the students listening ability of course...in theory.

First, you are to read the entire riddle clearly.
Then read off the answers A-D.
The students usually will have 30 secs or less to answer.
After you count to three, all students must raise their boards above their heads with the answer facing you.
You (and faculty) must check that they wrote the correct answer including spelling.
Give a few seconds for them to erase the boards and continue.

Any students that write the wrong answer are automatically out. Sometimes if too many students are "out" too fast, there will be a chance round. You do the question process and if the "out" students get it right, they can come back "in".


Hilariously at YCE, the students were basically all out after five or six questions. We did a chance round and most were let back in. Luckily, they did much better after that. In that school, many students were out simply because they chose the wrong answer. I was a bit sad because the questions were all up on a powerpoint behind me. In the end, we were able to choose a top three with one of them being from the fifth grade and the other two from the sixth.

I could see my coteacher was nervous and even scared when all the kids were basically out. The principal had come by to see the show and ended up leaving soon after. I felt bad too because I didn't want our Golden Bell to be a Dusty Cracked Bronze Bell. Nevertheless, if you insist on teaching without speaking English and demanding creativity, this is the result.



At SPE, the game was fairly rigged. Everyone studied the exact questions that I was to read for a full week and a half. It was terribly boring and most kids studied so much that they knew what the answers were by the time I read the second hint. The only reason students got out was because they missed the spelling due to letters like "r" "l" "d" "b", etc. Oh well. In the end they decided to give a first through third prize to both fifth and sixth grade. Tomorrow we'll be doing third and fourth with the same riddles.