ACTIVIYY 2
Speaking Taboo
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:
|
Cell phone |
Football |
Pizza |
bedroom |
grey
Africa
ivory |
Ancel
Samsung
Android |
ball
field
World Cup
|
Italy
delicious
tomato |
house
bed
sleep |
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.