This is a partner-pair speaking activity for English beginners that provides fun, repeated practice of common family, body-part, and clothing/accessory vocabulary. It is ideal for learners who are still learning to confidently form basic sentences.
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 uses the Character Tiles and the Family Tree Builder to replicate the family tree shown on the Participant 1’s Secret Card.
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:
Replication Exercises 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 Replication Exercise 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 basic mastery in using the following sentence pattern and sentence to successfully collect information in English:
“Does Tim’s/Lim’s mom/dad/daughter/son have (a) _______________?”
“Is Tim’s/Lim’s mom/dad/daughter/son wearing (a) _______________?”
“Is this the family tree?”
2. Gaining basic mastery in using the following phrases to answer questions accurately:
“Yes, he/she does.”
“No, he/she doesn’t.”
“Yes, he/she is.”
“No, he/she isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
On-Going Self-Assessment:
During each round of play, Participant 2 attempts to replicate Participant 1’s Family Tree Cards, 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 “Is this the family tree?” while showing their completed Family Tree Builder.
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 Replication Exercise with a new Secret Card.
Graduation:
Learners will have achieved the Learning Goals listed above when they can consistently complete the Replication Exercise 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 Replication Exercise activity, including correct use of the Core Vocabulary Words and Sentence Patterns.
3. Allow the students to practice the Replication Exercise 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: Family Tree Cards
Each of these cards feature a different combination of characters in different family roles. For this partner-pair activity, these cards serve as Secret Cards.
There is 1 sets of 90 cards, which are labelled Set A. They do not ALL need to be printed and prepared. The instructor can prepare a random selection of 30+ cards.
Each partner-pair participating in this activity will need 1 Secret Card at time, to be held by Participant 1.
•
For each round of this Replication Exercise, Participant 1 holds onto a single Secret Card and does not show it to Participant 2 until Participant 2 has constructed a complete family tree with the Family Tree Builder.
2: Family Tree Builder
The Family Tree Builder is a classroom learning tool that must be constructed from multiple layers of printer-friendly cardstock. Following the instructions (included in the printable PDF) will result in an object with convenient spaces for Character Tiles to be slipped into.
Each partner-pair participating in this activity will need their own Family Tree Builder, for use by Participant 2.
3: Character Tiles
This collection of 54 Character Tiles must be constructed from back-to-back layers of printer-friendly cardstock.
Each partner-pair participating in this activity will need a complete set of Character Tiles, for use by Participant 2.
The Full Set of Male Character Tiles
The Full Set of Female Character Tiles
6 of the Available 90 Family Tree Cards
Layers A & B of the 5-Layer Family Tree Builder
Layers C & D of the 5-Layer Family Tree Builder
Layer E of the 5-Layer Family Tree Builder
The Sentences & Sentence Patterns Used in this activity include everything needed to successfully complete this Replication Exercise.
Sentences & Sentence Patterns & Phrases |
Does Tim’s/Lim’s mom/dad/daughter/son have (a) _______________? |
Yes, he/she does. |
No, he/she doesn’t. |
Is Tim’s/Lim’s mom/dad/daughter/son wearing (a) _______________? Yes |
Yes, he/she is. |
No, he/she isn’t. |
Is this the family tree? |
Yes, it is. |
No, it isn’t. |
The Core Vocabulary Words listed below are all words that students should learn BEFORE attempting the Replication Exercise described on this page.
Core Vocabulary Words To Pre-Learn | |
Materials Set A (90 Cards) | baby, bald, beard, black, blond, blue, brown, dad, daughter, glasses, goatee, green, hair, mom, mustache, orange, pink, purple, red, shirt, son, suit jacket, sweater, teal, tie, t-shirt, white, yellow |
Notes:
*There is also the option to provide learners with a Cheat Sheet listing all of the Core Vocabulary Words next to their images. This will allow them practice using all of the vocabulary words without needing to first memorize them. The process of learning the words can be scaffolded by first allowing students to use the Cheat Sheet, and then (once they have some familiarity) encouraging them to flip the Cheat Sheet face-down and only use it after first attempting to recall a needed vocabulary word from memory.
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 | a/an, does, doesn’t, family, have, he, is, isn’t, it, no, she, the, this, tree, wearing, 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).
1. Singular / Uncountable Noun Grammar
This activity is good opportunity to teach and reinforce the concept of uncountable nouns, such as ‘hair’ and encourage students to only use ‘a/an’ as an article for countable nouns.
“Does Tim’s dad have a brown hair?”
“Does Tim’s dad have brown hair?”
