This is a partner-pair speaking activity for English beginners that provides fun, repeated practice describing time. It is ideal for learners who already have some confidence in forming basic sentences and can benefit from expanding their communication range to include telling time.
The two partners in each partner-pair work together, taking turns being the Participant 1 and Participant 2. For each round, Participant 1 begins by drawing 1 card from the Secret Card Deck.
Then, Participant 2 asks questions (using the provided Core Vocabulary Words and Sentences / Sentence Patterns) and systematically crosses off possibilities on a Deduction Panel until only one option remains.
Full Prerequisites: Students can participate fully in this Deduction Challenge with all of the activity’s available materials after memorizing/learning:
Materials Available: Currently, the following materials are ready for use:
Deduction Challenges are an excellent example of information-gap activities, which serve as communication practice exercises in both Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). These challenges provide language learners with repeated practice of important sentence patterns and topic-specific vocabulary.
Additionally, since successful completion of the Deduction Challenge task described below relies on accurately communicating information, the activity offers students an excellent opportunity to self-assess their communication accuracy and initiate error-correction themselves.
This is far more efficient and effective than students only knowing that they are making an error if an instructor points it out. It also empowers learners to seek out solutions to mistakes themselves, rather than primarily being passive receivers of teaching and error-correction.
1. Gaining mastery in using a variety of sentence patterns to successfully ask about whether a time is before or after another time during a 24 hour period.
“Is the time before/after 4:00 pm?”
2. Demonstrating basic mastery in using the following phrases to answer questions accurately:
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it is.”
3. Gaining mastery of asking if a certain time is correct.
“Is the time 12:49 am?“
On-Going Self-Assessment:
During each round of play, Participant 2 attempts to determine which time on a Deduction Panel matches the time on Participant 1’s Secret Card, based only on Participant 1’s answers.
The 2 members of a partner-pair will be able to self-assess their own performance after Participant 2 asks whether the last remaining time left on their Deduction Panel is the time shown on Participant 1’s Secret Card. (For additional confirmation, Participant 2 can show and point to the last remaining time on their Deduction Panel that they haven’t crossed out and Participant 1 can show their Secret Card.
Participant 1 can then show the Secret Card and the 2 partners can check if their verbal communication was successful. If they failed to successful communicate, they can figure out which mistake they made and then reattempt the Deduction Challenge with a new Secret Card.
Graduation:
Learners will have achieved the Learning Goals listed above when they can consistently complete the Deduction Challenge correctly with any randomly selected Secret Card, while using the target Sentences / Sentence Patterns and Core Vocabulary Words confidently and without hesitation.
1. Introduce the Core Vocabulary Words and encourage the students to learn them.
2. Demonstrate the Deduction Challenge activity, including correct use of the Core Vocabulary Words and Sentence Patterns.
3. Allow the students to practice the Deduction Challenge repeatedly.
4. The instructor’s role is to monitor the students’ practice to ensure correct use of the activity’s Sentence Patterns.
5. When students fully achieve the activity’s Learning Goals, the instructor can then graduate the student(s) to a new learning opportunity/activity that further builds on the newly achieved learning.
Notes:
If Cheat Sheets are not utilized, students should be required to demonstrate sufficient memorization of the Core Vocabulary Words before they are approved to participate in the Deduction Challenge activity.
For classes with only 1 student, the instructor will also need to be the student’s practice partner.
1: Digital Clock Cards
Each of these cards feature a time. For this partner-pair activity, these cards serve as Secret Cards.
There is 1 different sets of 27 cards, which are labelled Set A.
Each partner-pair participating in this activity will need 1 Secret Card at time, to be held by Participant 1.
One set of these cards is suitable for a group of up to 27 activity participants. If there are more than 18 participants, then additional cards will need to be added to the secret card deck.
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For each round of this Deduction Challenge, Participant 1 holds onto a single Secret Card and does not show it to Participant 2 until Participant 2 has narrowed down the choices on their Deduction Panel to just one.
2: Digital Clocks Deduction Panels
The Digital Clocks Deduction Panel A features 48 digital clock times on a single “panel.” All of the 27 clock times show on the card in Digital Clock Cards Set A appear on Digital Clocks Deduction Panel A. If laminated, the clock times on Deduction Panels can be systematically crossed off with an erasable whiteboard marker.
Participants can also color in the correct circle on the am/pm indicator on the top-left of the panel to show that the time is either in the am or the pm.
After completing a round of the Deduction Challenge, participants can simple wipe the marker marks off of the laminated surface and immediately be ready to repeat the activity.
Each partner-pair participating in this activity will need their own Deduction Panel, for use by Participant 2.
Page 2/3 of Set A of the Digital Clock Cards
Page 3/3 of Set A of the Digital Clock Cards
Digital Clocks
Deduction Panel Set A
The Sentences & Sentence Patterns Used in this activity include everything needed to successfully complete this Deduction Challenge. While sentences can indeed be composed that would allow for the activity to be completed more efficiently, the provided sentences & sentence patterns below are specifically chosen to maximize learners’ use of the activity’s Core Vocabulary Words.
If the answerer (Participant 1) was permitted to simply tell their partner the time shown on their Secret Card, this Deduction Challenge could be completed with a single question and answer. However, by limiting Participant 1’s responses to yes/no answers, Participant 2 must compose more questions than would otherwise be necessary.
Standard Sentences & Sentence Patterns |
Is the time before _________________ am/pm? |
Is the time after _________________ am/pm? |
Is the time _________________ am/pm? |
Yes, it is. / No, it isn’t. Yes |
Students will need to learn numbers 1-60 BEFORE attempting the Deduction Challenge described on this page. All other needed words can be learned while playing.
Core Vocabulary Words To Pre-Learn | |
Materials Set A (27 Cards) | Numbers 1-60 |
The following words will be used to the play this game (with every available set of cards). However, these words don’t need to be pre-taught. These words can and should be learned WHILE playing the game. The instructor’s demonstration of how to play the game will provide an opportunity to show how all of these words are used as part of useful communication sentences.
Vocabulary Best Learned in Context | |
Used With All Material Sets | after, am/pm, before, is, isn’t, it, no, the, time, yes |
Most of the words included on this list are hard (or virtually impossible) to depict visually on a flashcard. Demonstrating them while introducing this Deduction Challenge and then having learners use them while participating in the activity is an optimal strategy for helping learners understand the words’ meaning (based on context/function).
