Yes/No situational guessing game

Details
Written by Elena Ivanova
Parent Category: English
Category: English 20-24, 25+
Created: 16 March 2011

Date: 10.03.2011

Aim: raising awareness of the use of ENV model.

Material : The Broken Vase. A young man wanted to give a present to his girlfriend. He bought a broken vase at a very cheap price in a second hand shop. He wanted to drop that wrapped vase when his girlfriend opened the door. So, he did as he had planned. When she opened the door he dropped the vase. The girl started to pick up the piece and suddenly... she slapped him in the face.

Procedure: finding the answer for 10 questions.

Step 1: the students read the situations and thought about the possible questions individually.

Step 2: they worked in pairs and discussed the possible questions to ask.

Step 3: the students asked the questions but they did not find the answer of the situational guessing game.

 

The first question was in the form of the supposition about the possible answer of the situation.

The questions asked:

2. Did she sell the vase?

3. Is she selfish?

4. Is there anything in the vase?

5. Is there anything on the vase?

6. Was a piece missing?

7. Was it made of china?

8. Did the second hand shop assistant write anything on the vase?

9. Was there a price on the vase?

 

Feedback: I was satisfied with the language practice this type of activity provided. Moreover it is a step forward to the ENV model. We had a discussion after the game about the key words, such as second hand shop, old vase, pick up. We also talked over the effective questions that might be asked to solve this riddle.

 

P.S. One of the questions made me laugh: Was he a fool or what?

One of the students said that he found this situation interesting if not the boy.

Comments  

# Alexander Sokol 2011-03-17 09:17
Elena, it seems you are omitting the most interesting things. As long as the aim of the lesson was connected with raising awareness of the use of the ENV model, it'd have been interesting to have your comments on this. For example, did anyone refer to the ENV model when asking / reflecting on the questions? In what way? One option is to get the students to explain the rationale for the question at once - eg which parameter they took as a basis and how the grouped the values to exclude as many options as possible. You can also evaluate their questions (eg from 0 to 2) - this might motivate them to ask a better question and also think about the reasons for a low / high mark for this or that question.

And a technical suggestion. To make it easier for others to follow your posts, you might want to include either a full text of the task or a link to the place where this text can be found (an external place or a post in the Materials section where you're welcome to add tasks you work with).
# Elena Ivanova 2011-05-17 08:12
Alexander, thank you for all the useful comments.
I also agree that it would be much more convenient to include the materials in my posts to make it easier for others to follow my diary. I have already edited this post.

I do agree that I should give more details about my implementation of ENV model. Thank you for the ideas about ENV model practicing. I will definetly use them.
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