SPEAKING

The teacher prepares SELF-ADHESIVE TYPEWRITER ADDRESS LABELS ( which can be purchased in rolls to stick on the backs of all the students in the class.

Each label contains a real person's name or the name of a character from fiction or television cartoons. Each named person should have a natural partner, for example if you write a label with the name ROMEO, there should also be a label with the name JULIET stuck on somebody's back. If you have an odd number of students in your class, stick a label on your own back, but let the students do the questioning.

Questions must be of the type that can either be answered with YES or No:

Am I man or a woman? Alive or dead? European or American? Real or fictitious?

Am I a character from a cartoon or a book? Am I rich? Am I famous?

Have I been in the news recently? Am I someone from your country? Britain?

Do I work in sport / music / entertainment / the cinema / the theatre?

Student (A) thinks of a nationality

Student (B) asks:

"Do you wear______________?"

"Do you drink / eat _________ ?"

"Do you play (sport) or (game)?"

"Do you play the (musical instrument)?"

"Does it rain / snow a lot there?"

"Is it very hot / very cold there?"

"Do the people like ______ there?"

"Are the people there tall / short / romantic / hard-working / rich / poor?

Student (A) thinks of a famous person, fictitious character or cartoon character?

Student (B) asks YES/NO questions as in 1. Find Your Partner.

Do you work indoors or outdoors? / in a trade or profession? / in a factory or an office?

Do you work with your hands? Do you wear a uniform? Do you work long hours?

Do you work from 9-5? Do you work regular hours? Do you work at weekends?

Do you work with people or machines? Are you in a service industry?

Do you sell something? Do you earn a lot of money? Must you have good qualifications to do your job?

Student A chooses ONE of the jobs in Groups 1 and 2 above.

Student B chooses ONE of the jops in Groups 3 and 4 above.

The students have to mime their jobs so their partners can guess what they are.

Write a role card for each student in the class giving them a problem which could occur in an airport. Each student has to mime their problem. The class try to guess the problem by asking questions, but the student with the problem is not permitted to speak. They can only signal YES or NO.

This is a good game for teaching vocabulary in a memorable context. The stranger the problem, the more probable it is that the words will become part of the class's active vocabulary.

The game is especially good for supplying the right formulae in difficult situations where languages may be a problem:

The Airline HELP desk can be moved to another environment e.g. a language school, a hospital or a hotel .