What Can Be Done in One Minute?

In today's class, to help the students realize how many words they can review in three minutes, I made them experience how long "one" minute was. Setting the timer to one minute, I asked the students to do nothing but breathe as seconds ticked away. When the buzzer went off, everyone seemed to feel one minute was really long.

Why did I do this? To help the students review the vocabulary, phrases, and patterns they were supposed to re-learn during the 9-day make-up class, I made a list, which contains 381 language items. With the list, they can do a self test to check what they remember and what they don't. Their final exam is this Friday, and 381 is a daunting number. To ease their anxiety, I advised them to review around 96 words per day, which is still quite stressful. If they spend two hours reviewing these words at night, they have to go through 48 words each hour; however, if they spend 3 minutes per hour on ten words, they will find the mission easier to complete.