49 ESL Conversation Games & Activities - Jackie Bolen 2020

20 Questions
English conversation games and activities for higher level students

Skills: Speaking/Listening

Time: 5-20 minutes

Level: High-Beginner to Advanced

Materials Required: Nothing

This is a “20 questions” style game based on whatever you’re teaching such as animals or jobs that is particularly effective for working on yes/no question forms and also logical thinking. With higher level students, this works well as a warm-up or icebreaker activity. Leave it open and allow the students to choose any noun. The teacher starts the game by thinking of a secret thing and the students can ask the teacher yes/no questions. Keep track of how many questions are asked and incorrect answers count as a guess too. Students can then play the game in small groups or in pairs, which will significantly increase the student talking time.

Teaching Tips:

It is especially important to do a demonstration of this game because in my experience, it isn't played in many parts of the world. Also coach students a little bit on what good and bad question types are. For example, a guess right at the start of the game is terrible strategy, as is a too specific question. However, a general question which eliminates a lot of possible answers is a good one (animals: Does it have 4 legs?”, or jobs: “Do I need to go to university to get it?”).

This game is easily adaptable to make it easier or more difficult. To make it very difficult, just say that the secret word has to be a noun. If you want to make it less difficult, specify either a person, place or thing. Finally, the easiest version is to choose a more specific category such as animals or jobs. If you choose the easiest version, consider reducing the number of questions from 20 down to 10. For absolute beginners, it's useful to write some example questions on the board for them to refer to throughout the activity.

This is another one of those absolutely nothing required in the way of preparation or materials games which can be played with a variety of levels and class sizes (from 1-40). Keep it in your bag of tricks to pull out in case of emergency.

Tip for Increasing Interaction:

The best way to make 20 Questions more interactive is to have students play it in small groups of 4-5 people instead of the entire class. However, if you do this emphasize that this activity should be done using English only.

Procedure:

1. The teacher chooses a secret thing for the example. Students ask a yes/no question. The teacher answers the question and puts one tick (checkmark) on the board.

2. Students ask more questions and the game continues until the students either guess the secret thing or they reach 20 questions/guesses. With a small class, it's easy to monitor the activity to ensure that each student gets to ask a question. With a larger class, make a rule that once a student has asked one question, they cannot ask another one until five more questions have been asked. If the students guess the secret thing, they win. If they reach 20 questions without guessing, the teacher is the winner.

3. Each guess also counts as one question, in order to prevent random guessing.

4. Students can play the game in partners or small groups of 3-5. Whoever guesses the correct answer gets to choose the next secret thing in a group.