Introduction

The Name of the game is Animals. I was inspired by the CLIL handbook that our instructor handed out in our first session. There was a similar game, nevertheless, I thought it was a little bit too simple as no speaking was involved. I changed the game by adding some questions and scaffolding to the game, which I thought would be quite helpful for the students, as well as giving the game some kind of linguistic objective.

All students get a card with three main questions: "Where do you live?", "What do you eat?", and  "What is your colour?" After that, one student is appointed to start the game (it would be advisable if the teacher gave an example to the students first) and think of an animal, without telling the group. Then, he or she acts out a movement that is related to the animals. The other students ask questions and the student answers. Now they have to guess which animal he or she is. The student that guessed correctly is the next one to pick an animal, and so on.

Target group and Time

I would suggest that the game is most suitable for children in year 4 and 5, as the language that is required is quite basic. The time should not exceed 10-15 minutes, otherwise the children won't be able to come up with new animals anymore.

Learning objectives

The main objective of the game is to learn the sentence structure of questions. Further, the students enhance their vocabulary and learn new facts about animals that they might have not known before.

Instructions to set up the activity

After running a test round, I found it beneficial to provide some scaffolding in form of cards with animals, their habitat, their food and their colour. That way the flow of the game won't get interrupted.

Optional: The game could be adjusted to other topics as well, e.g. professions, historical figures, etc., depending on the students' level of English and their general knowledge.