Rules:
1. Divide the group into the teams of two (three is also possible), it's better to sit so that all the students could see each other, and the partners shouldn't sit next to each other.
2. Every student writes 5 words (usually nouns but еру teacher can choose any parameter or determine the subject area according to his/her goals..) on small pieces of paper and folds them twice (the words can also be written by a teacher, or some – by students, some – by a teacher (e.g. 2x3)).
3. All the sheets are placed into one pot (bag or hat..)
4. The pot goes from one student to another and each one should explain to his partner as many words as he can. For this task everyone has 20 seconds. If the one takes a word but doesn't know it, he can't change it, he can divide it into parts or use any other way to explain it, but no actions, only words. If the time is off but the word isn't guessed, the sheet should be folded and taken to the pot again. Usually the pot makes 3-4 rounds per a session. After the word is explained and guessed the one should take it next to him/her (each sheet is a point).
5. After the last word in the pot is guessed, every team counts their points and takes the sheets of paper back to the pot. The second session begins.
6. Here the students should show the words they choose (as the words are the same it is not very difficult). For it they have 30 seconds.
7. In the third session the students explain the words using only one lexical unit (if the first thing they say is “well…” or “Oh, my God”, they can’t add anything else).
I guess, that’s all..
There is also a short variant:
The student, who explains the words, explains it to the next nearest one (через одного), so, finally, if the number of students is even, we get two teams (but I want to emphasize, that one student explains the word and only one student guesses it). Here, only one session is usually played.
What the students learn from this task:
At first, obviously, they learn the words, as they are repeated at least for three times. What’s more, the students work out the techniques to learn and recognize the words. For example, my students never recognized the difficult words which consist of two or three roots, though when I pointed them out and asked to summarize the meanings of the roots, they found out the general meaning of the word without dictionary. In this game explaining the difficult word by dividing it into two or three simple parts is a usual strategy, so, after playing it, the students automatically see the simple parts in complicated words.
Also students build strong associative lines, which sometimes look illogical but still help in learning new words.