ACTIVIYY 2

Taboo words!

Main goals: Developing fluency.

Time: 20 minutes

Materials: printed cards

Level of difficulty: medium

Technical requirements: none

Warm-up/pre-speaking

• Explain the objective of the game: to define a concept without using some “Taboo” words in less than two minutes. .
• Ask students to form groups of three or four.
• Set a time limit for each words to be guessed: usually two minutes is enough.

 Sample cards to print and cut:

 
Explain the following strategies to play the game.

1. Read the  words.

2. Define the red words.

3. Personalize the examples

4. Never stop speaking

Model the use of the first card:

       1.  It is an animal.

       2. It  is not black, or brown or white.

       3. It has got four legs.

       4. It isn’t from America or Europe.

       5. Dumbo is one.

       6. We studied them last week (if applicable!)

 Analyze the sentences with the students. Highlight the use of negatives, and personalization.

Option 2

To make the activity more challenging shorten the time to a single minute.

Option 3

Ask students to create cards using concepts taught in class.

Post-speaking

Discuss the factors that facilitated playing this game:

1. Listening carefully

2. Paying attention when others speak

3. Turn taking.

4. Planning before speaking.

5. Paraphrasing.