Playing a guessing game is a popular way to reinforce all sorts of vocabulary. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you have done a similar type of assignment to the one I am about to describe, but since there are so many different ways to go about it, I thought I’d share what I do.
Around this time of the year, my students are learning how to describe people by saying their nationality, profession, age, and where they are from. After we have learned the vocabulary, students pick a mystery celebrity. I encourage them to be creative in their choice. The celebrity can be real or it can be a character, and they can be living or dead. Then the students write six hints as to who the person is. First, they state if it’s a boy, girl, man, or woman. Then, they state their profession, age, nationality, and hometown (all in complete sentences of course!). Finally, they say “Il/Elle s’appelle X.X.” with the “X.X” representing the person’s initials. They put all of this information on a mini poster with a picture of their person covered by a flap, so no one can see who it is at first.
This assignment could easily be adapted for upper levels by using different tenses, and/or allowing for more details and expansion in the responses.
Once the students have completed this assignment, they go around the room reading their clues and trying to stump their classmates. It’s always fun to see what celebrities students pick. Here are some examples:
