Big shout out to Margit for discovering today’s game….
If you’re teaching describing words then you can’t beat the Guess Who? games by Hasbro.
But … what if you can’t get to a toy store?
Well, they now have a very nice series of free online printable versions!
The sports one is the easiest:
and you can link it in with the What sports do you play? lesson to ask:
Basketball or baseball?
Red shirt or yellow shirt?
Boy or girl?
Or of course if you’re in high school and having to teach more “textbooky” type English you can also get them to say full questions like:
Is it a boy or a girl?
Does she play golf or hockey? etc.
There are a whole series of other ones including Kookie Creatures, Easter Bunnies and then some tougher one for older kids with G.I. Joe and Dinosaurs.
Ninja Tip: Just like with the Genki English Adjectives games the key here is not to ask *lots* of questions, but to ask as few as possible. Each time try and break the remaining options down to half. This is a key skill in business, science, time management, finance and everything in life really!
Do let us know what you think in the comments!
P.P.S. For hair, eye colour etc. do check out the VIP Beta Test “He has / She has” song
P.S. And if you have any requests for specific describing questions to maybe have in a Genki English version of these games, do let me know in the comments! 🙂
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
Margit, great game! I found the rules here:
http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Guess-Who-(Board-Game)
Any clever ideas of how to help students keep track of the ‘NO’ answers, yet use the same handout more than once? Perhaps laminate the sheets and use a white board marker?
the Kookie creatures is perfect for the ALIEN/OCTOPUS theme. You can ask with words
2 eyes? 1 nose? blue face? Or in a question Do you have 2 eyes? Do you have a blue face? etc.
That was fast~and I really had to laugh at the old old demo and my own comments such a long time ago!
After our talk I started wondering about better situations in real life.
As I do not depend that much on technology yet, I do describe a lot , e.g.:
Mr … is my new boss~
Do I know him?
Yes, I think so~he came to the BBQ last year. he is tall and has…
but then my mind went backwards (or you might say forward), as indeed with technology, if you meet someone somewhere for the first time, no need to say what you’ll look like anymore >>there are smartphones!
If you want to describe what your holiday spot looks like: there is FaceTime.
Fotos in a minute, videos etc.
Starting to think on this spiral I got really really depressed. As I love LANGUAGE as it is, and I’d be very sad seeing language disappear.
On the other hand of course it is great to learn any language even faster.
But I think I do want to keep the language alive and I do want to have my kids able to describe things.
Would be nice to have anyone’s thoughts on this.
@Gumby: If you print the cards out they can just turn them over.
@Margit: For the personal development side of things you need describing words for gratitude training (describing what you are grateful for makes humans happy!) and future aspirations (the more clearly humans can see our future dreams, the easier it is for them to come true.) And also if you are in any kind of business or education then you need describing words, compare “Fun Educational Materials” with “If you need an instant boost of energy in your English lessons right now, then this is the program for you!” 🙂
Plus of course art, expression, drama, contrast the regular vegetable words with the superhero vegetable words. Don’t want to eat broccoli? Yeah, but this brainpower broccoli!!
Don’t know how this could work into a song, but I had fun class with my jr college students.
My structures were In (city name) there is a (ramen/delicious…)restaurant, I like…, Would you like..?
I had them fill in the name of their hometown and favorite restaurant. They also had to say their favorite food from that restaurant. Then they had to describe what they liked about the restaurant. finally they had to ask “Would you like…?” and get a YES answer.
It would be great to have adjectives like delicious, clean, sweet, spicy, crunchy, fruity, light, heavy, mild, rich, simple, fresh, tasty, and mushy?!
@gumby: I use ohajiki (have a box of those they have in their math set)
But yeah! Richard’s idea is again much better and makes them play even faster, as they just turn around~but it is more to laminate. So, maybe try the hajiki first and see how you go. (It is great for fine motor skills, too)
@ Richard~great to hear this~
Those are so awesome that they’ll be going in tomorrow’s lessons!
Hi Margit!
I think I will stay with hajiki. This is the sort of game that doesn’t work if one piece is missing, and there would be a lot of pieces if you cut them up into individual cards.
Thank you. I was searching for ways to adapt the Guess Who game for children with special needs. This is a school project. Do you know of any guess who (what) with plants or vehicles?