Replication Exercises

About This Activity Type

Overview

For these activities, students work in partner-pairs, with one partner describing the appearance of an image (or a 3-dimensional sculpture) while the other partner attempts to replicate the image based solely on the two partners’ verbal communication.

Depending on the activity, there are different modes of replication, including drawing a picture, organizing tiles to recreate the image, cutting & gluing objects or shapes printed on a sheet of paper, or even using LEGO or other physical materials to build a 3-dimensional structure.

Methodological Basis

The activities listed on this page are all information-gap activities, which serve as communication practice exercises within the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) methodologies.

However, unlike Deduction Challenges (which are especially suitable for English language beginners as they only require the use of a few sentence patterns and a relatively concise list of vocabulary words), the Replication Exercises featured on this page are ideal for intermediate-level learners, as they provide an opportunity for varied and open-ended communication practice.

To successfully complete these exercises, activity participants will need to accurately use various prepositions, verbs, and adjectives to precisely communicate the location, size, and condition of different elements and objects.

Activity Versions

There are four different types of Deduction Challenges that can be implemented for most sets of materials.

Builder Activity
Two partners communicate to replicate an image on a secret card that only one partner can see, so that the other partner can used physical materials to build a copy of the image. Some of these activities have a tile-based building system.
Connections Replication
Two partners communicate about a secret card that only one partner can see, so that the other partner can replicate the connections shown on the secret card.
Cut & Glue Activity
Two partners communicate to replicate an image on a secret card that only one partner can see, so that the other partner can cut and glue piece of an image together to create a copy of the scene or image on the Secret Card.
Drawing Activity
Two partners communicate to replicate an image on a secret card that only one partner can see, so that the other partner can draw a copy of the image on the Secret Card as accurately as possible.