Are you looking for a super fun speaking game to play with your students? This game is the absolute best and easiest! I love Who Is It so much! It’s actually one of my favorite speaking games to play with friends as well. And that’s how I got the idea to use it in my classroom! It’s super easy to set up if you bring the right tools. Let me tell you why!
Who Is It helps students ask questions in correct English. The other group members may want to help correct questions that were phrased incorrectly, and so the students learn. They also learn to speak out loud in a group in the target language, which improves fluency. Students have to listen to each other as well, so this activity becomes a listening practice task too. And finally, it’s just a really fun way to try to use the target language without much pressure.
Wanna know some other games I like? Grab this free PDF of the 7 Best Whiteboard Marker Games right now!
Why Who Is It is one of the easiest speaking games to facilitate
Can you get your hands on some sticky notes? Do you students have a pen? Then you can play this game! Just have students write the name of someone their peers will all know, like a celebrity or a teacher or even a classmate. They must then pass that sticky note to another students without showing that other student what’s on the note. This other students will stick the note to their forehead, and so do all the other students in the group.
Then begins the task of guessing exactly ‘who it is’ that’s stuck to their forehead. Students play in small groups. Each student gets to ask a question that may only be answered with yes or no by the rest of the group. If the answer is ‘yes’, the student may ask another question. If the answer is ‘no’, their turn is over and the next student may ask their question(s). The first student to guess the name of their note, wins the game.
A speaking game ESL students love
My students love this game because it’s so low pressure. Plus it looks super fun when they all have a sticky note stuck to their forehead. Learning is much more fun if it’s gamified. I love using this game when we want to practice asking questions in English. This spoken game is perfect for that!
Who It It is one of the best speaking activities for beginners. However, if you feel like it’s too difficult for students to come up with names of celebrities and such, then a game sheet may be better for your kiddos. In this version, two students will play against each other, or they play in teams of two.
Each team gets a sheet of images of 20 people with names that each have a different appearance. Students then have to ask each other yes and no questions to find out who their person is by process of elimination. It will really help students to have a visual of what all the options look like, which makes it easier to pinpoint the ones that cannot be it. This version really works really well and is one of my favorite speaking activities beginners can definitely handle.
So try out this speaking game, I know you will love it! Who Is It is really the best!
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