Deduction Card Games

About This Activity Type

Overview

Deduction Card Games are an amazing way to simultaneously allow student to get lots of English speaking practice while using vocabulary words from a specific topic.

Students take turns logically deducing which cards laid out in front of them (from a set of 9 to 27 similar cards) is identical to the "secret card" held (but hidden from view) by their activity partner.

This will allow them to get repeated practice using core vocabulary words with useful & common sentence structures as they practice systematically deducing the identity of their partner's "secret card."

Our Deduction Card Games are generally designed for partner-practice (where two partners take turns playing the asker and the answerer roles), but other options are also possible.

Activity Presentation Phase Instructions

Methodological Background

Deduction Card Games are an excellent example of information-gap activities.

Information-gap activities are a type of classroom communication practice exercise in both communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based language teaching (TBLT).

These activities allow teachers and students to complete a task that can only be successfully completed through authentic verbal communication.

In the case of the activities listed on this page, the task is to accurately communicate relevant information that allows one of two activity partners (the asker) to narrow down which of the cards in their set of cards matches the "secret card" held by their activity partner (the answerer).

Methological Background

Printing & Game Play Instructions

Playing Card Games

About the size of a traditional playing card, these game cards print 9 to a sheet and therefore usually come in sets of 9, 18, or 27 cards. Some of the following sets of cards are designed to be used for several different games (all of which provide practice for different topics), which will maximize the utility of the time spent printing and preparing those sets of game cards.

Animal Cards

Animal Cards