Hello everyone who is reading this!
Students spend too much time looking at a screen and often there are lots of bomb games out there, but for tactile people I think its good to add some creative applied work.
Lately I have been teaching my students about WH questions and how to make a proper question and then answer with a full sentence. Since it is Halloween time, I thought it would be fun for us to create our own murder mystery clue game. It takes about 2 classes to do as students must take notes, learn the new words and how to make the game, make the game, and then finally play it (group against group and then individuals against each other in their group).
Here are the instructions for the game:
(I just got students to write and draw a picture for each card. For where I asked them to draw a flag of the country and write the capital city and country name below. People could be anyone. Just be strict that there is no Korean.)
Who-What-Where-When-Why-How is a TEFL game based on the popular boardgame, Cluedo.
The game is ideal for practicing speaking and listening. It is particularly good for formulating and practicing questions and above all, it can be adapted very easily for different themes and cultures and is tremendously flexible.
For the purposes of this article, the original Cluedo game will be used as a basis for the classroom activity. However, you'll see that it can be easily adapted and made much more involved for experienced classes.
Preparation
This involves making cards (and for how your class can do the work for you, see here).
Below is how to make a simple version of the game, effectively Who-Where-How.
Who
Collect 10 pictures of individuals from magazines and put them on a card each. Give each a memorable name. The original Cluedo featured:
Professor Plum
Miss Scarlett
Mrs White
Colonel Mustard
but you can make your own.
Where
This is about locations. These can be within a house, e.g.
living room
bathroom
kitchen
Or you can move around the country. If you were in Italy, for example, you could choose:
Pisa
Genoa
Rome
Venice
Note that you are using the English versions of city names here for practice.
How
For this simple version following the Cluedo idea, collect 5 pictures of a murder weapon and put them on a card each. Examples here are:
gun
rope
poison
bomb (be careful with this in certain countries)
dagger
axe
spanner
More
If you are expanding the game and using other categories, simply make suitable cards for them. What can feature actions (as in what was done); When can feature any kind of time frame - dates, years, time of day, seasons, etc; Why can feature motives.
Finally, on a sheet of paper list all the Who-names, Where-locations and How-methods. This needs to be photocopied so you can give them out in class.
Setting Up the Game
Run through the grammar of question formation and make sure your students are happy with this.
Then divide the class into small teams of 3 or so (with the more teams, the better; depending on the size of the class; if you work with large classes you may need to prepare more cards above). You should make the teams as equal as possible in terms of ability.
Tell the class that an anonymous caller has phoned the police and told them there has been a murder and it is up to the class to discover:
who killed the victim
where the murder took place
how the victim was murdered
Then give each team a photocopied sheet with the list of suspects, locations and weapons. Now would be a good time to check that everyone is familiar with the vocabulary here.
Tell the class the murderer, location and weapon is on this list, but they have to find it!
Murder
Tell the class you will create the murder. Choose at random a card from the pile of suspects and put it in an envelope. Then choose a murder weapon at random and add it to the envelope. Finally choose a location and do the same.
It's best here that not even you as teacher see the contents of the envelope. It needs to be a surprise!
Explain to the class they the only way they can work out the name of the murderer, the location and the murder weapon is by eliminating all other possibilities from the sheet they have until only 3 remain. And they do this in two ways:
1. By crossing out from the sheet the cards they will be given.
2. By asking questions of the other teams to see what cards they have and then eliminating those from the sheet.
Now take all the remaining cards and shuffle them together thoroughly. Then deal them out to the teams, one at a time, till they are all gone.
Solving the Murder
The teams must now solve the murder. Give them a few minutes to check the cards they have and eliminate them from the sheet.
Then in turn, each team can ask a question to any other team about a specific card. Of course, all the teams in the class must listen carefully here as everyone can use the information.
Good questions would be:
Do you have Professor Plum?
Have you got a gun?
Do you have Venice?
As the questions are asked and answered, the teams will be able to slowly cross off which cards are "in play" and see which cards are possibly in the envelope.
Finally, when a team thinks they know the answer, they can make an accusation:
"We believe it was Miss Scarlett in Rome with poison!"
If they are sure they want to accuse, you suspend the game and (theatrically!) open the envelope.
It they are right, they have won. If they are wrong, they are eliminated from the game and other teams continue asking and answering until the truth is revealed.
Variations on the Theme
Once the class are familiar with the game you can bring in variations.
More options. Simply add more cards to each category so that the teams must ask more questions.
Less options; to make the game easier - perhaps for the first time of play - you can make it just Who and How.
Restricted questions; only indirect questions can be asked or passive questions, etc.
Exploding the Game
In some cultures a game like this based on murder might be a little insensitive and may not suit the class you have. Instead, it is easy to adapt the idea to other scenarios. Over time you can build up collections of cards in the different categories of Who-What-Where-When-Why-How.
Then you can set up different scenarios and ask the students to work out:
the name of the thief, who stole which famous painting, from which gallery
the name of the adventurer, who crossed which country, by which method
the name of the explorer, who found which ancient artifact, from which country
the name of the celebrity, who has bought what kind of pet, and given it what name
the name of the actor, who starred in what film, when
the name of the teacher, who used to live in which country, and why they left
The possible permutations are endless!
