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This game can be adapted in various ways for different stages of English learners. The vocabulary can become more advanced, topics can be changed, gestures can become more complex.

Introduction for 

This teaching activity starts with a short round of introductions, with each student asked to state whether they have a dream job. If they feel comfortable, they were welcome to say what their dream job is. After this first round, the teacher can let the students blindly pick cards with English terms for different jobs. They are then asked to think of a single pose or movement that encapsulated what this job, in their opinion, was about. After about a minute of consideration, everyone who feels confident in their pose or movement is asked to act it out in front of their classmates. In contrast to a regular game of mime, the teacher could ask the students to not shut out what their classmate are doing. Instead, the instructor could ask them to wait until after their classmate has finished, and then start the discussion with the question: „What was he/she doing?“ and not „What job did he/she act out?“. 

Depending on the time left, teachers could follow up this activity with another group activity, in which every group member is asked to act out the pose resembling the job they liked the most at the same time. This might help less outgoing students to also take part in a dramatic activity. 

Target group and Time

Target group: Grades 5 and 6; it is possible to varie the difficulty of the job terms between both grades (e.g. only used „chef“ for the 6th graders) and focus on more straight-forward instructions with the younger kids.

Time: 3 minutes for the first introductory time and then leave as much time as needed for the main activity. This might be necessary because the amount of students that feel comfortable could varie greatly between the different groups and the different grades.

Learning objectives

General: With this teaching activity, teachers aim at helping the students understand what tasks different jobs, including their dream jobs, require, and how to describe theses tasks. „Describing“ here referred to two ways of depicting an activity: Using their bodies to express their thoughts and verbally expressing what a job entails. 

Vocabulary: Every student is supposed to learn the vocabulary for 5-10 job descriptions by looking at the cards and their fellow students performances. Furthermore, they learned verbs related to the actions, e.g. „cooking“ or „performing“.

Grammar: Describing their classmates performances required the students to use forms of the progressive, which they did with varying success.

Instructions to set up the activity

Prepare cards with job terms; distribute them randomly. Prepare more cards than students so you are able to have students exchange cards that they do not feel comfortable with or go beyond their knowledge, even in German. This did not prevent students from sticking with new words, but getting a new card helped them to actually think of a pose when the former one felt too abstract.

Encourage students to open up - by talking about their dream job and/or by choosing to perform. However, make the option to not say their dream job or not act out explicit, so that no one feels pressured to put themselves into an uncomfortable situation. I felt like this helped students to not feel afraid, and in some circumstances, the students went on to discover their courage and performed after declining to do so at first.

Letting it run

Always encourage students to ask for vocabulary.
Do not be be discouraged when students they ask question in German or when they use German to explain the rules to their classmates - this actually shows that they are interested and want to take part.
If students show a lot of enthusiasm and use it in a productive way, use that positive engergy - don‘t cut off the activity.