Guessing Game:

20 Questions /

What’s in the Bag?

 

Level: Can be used for any level junior high school.  Or as warm up activity for some high school classes.  Can play with entire class.

 

Aims: Practice Vocabulary: nouns and adjectives; practice asking questions

 

Description:

“20 Questions” is a guessing game in which many different types of question structures can be practiced.  “What’s in the Bag? “ is a variation of 20 Questions, but is essentially the same activity.

 

In either case, the instructor thinks of an object, and the students must ask questions to determine what that object is.  In “20 Questions” the object can be absolutely anything the students already know the English word for.  It can range from everyday items and animals (e.g. pencil, soccer ball, cat, blackboard, piano) to imaginary objects (e.g. Dragon, wizard, robot) to large and conceptual objects (e.g. school, Australia).  (You can also think of the name of another teacher in the school). 

 

In “What’s in the Bag?” the instructor is limited to objects that can fit into a bag (or box).  (For “What’s in the Bag?” you can put many objects into the bag and select one for each round. 

 

For junior high school, write and practice appropriate sentence patterns.  These patterns can be adjusted to fit any level student.  The grammar should parallel that in the current lesson of the textbook.

 

For lower levels, use Yes/No questions only (e.g. Q: “Is it round?” A: Yes/No).  For medium levels, they can ask “either/or” questions (e.g. Q: “Is it big or small?”  A: It is Big / It is Small).  For higher levels, any question is okay (e.g. all previous types as well as, “What color is it?”  “How big is it?”  “What does it taste like?”)

 

It may be helpful to provide the students with a sheet of categorized questions divided by type of object:

 

e.g.:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Another Variation: “What am I?”

“What am I?” is played exactly the same as “20 Questions” except instead of talking about the object in the 3rd person (e.g. Q: Is it round or square?  A: “Yes it is”) the leader of the activity takes on the persona of the object: e.g. Q: Are you round or square?  A: Yes, I am.

 

Incentives:

You can motivate the students in a variety of ways.  You can play it as a simple practice game, where any student in the class can guess the answer at any time.  Or you can add incentives.  You can divide the class into teams, and allow only the team currently asking the question to guess the correct answer.  The winning team gets a prize.  Or you can play without teams, and let the individual who correctly guesses the answer receive a small prize (perhaps let the student keep whatever is in the box if it is a pencil or a piece of candy or a sticker). 

 

Another variation: You can allow the students to lead the game one or two at a time.  The student thinks of an object and the rest of the class asks him or her questions.  The teacher can help coach the student if he or she has trouble. 

 

Note: 2nd year Junior High School students probably know this game from the warm-up to Unit 1 of New Horizon 2.