sofimofi: Picture-description Dictation!

I invented a new game! I invented a new game! And I'm very happy about it, and the students were really into it!!!

This one was for an adult pre-intermediate class, and it was to practice the present continuous to describe pictures (for example, She is standing at the back; He is wearing a tie; The girl is eating an apple), and the occasional use of present simple where it is needed (There is a table at the corner; The lady looks sad; It is on the right side). This game is great because it involves a high use of verbal communication, as well as listening and writing. It also requires teams to strategize, and there is time pressure, so that's always exciting!

Here it is:

I divided the class into 5 equal teams of 3 people each. Each round will include one person from each team to be the "writer", and two people to be the "runners". I attach a picture of a painting outside in the hallway on the wall. I tell the runners to stand up and get ready, and on 3, they all run out and scramble to go look at the painting outside. Their goal is to describe the painting in as much detail as possible to their "writer", who writes down this information. No drawings are allowed. The runners can keep going back and forth to look at the painting and continue describing to their writer. I give a time limit of about 3 minutes, and then all teams have to cease.

This is the first painting I used. Since in the last lesson, the focus was on famous paintings, I kept the same theme of famous paintings. I had spoken to the class about the surrealism style of Salvador Dali. This is one of his famous paintings, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1946.

In the next part, all of the writers are separated from their teams and brought on a panel at the front of the class, facing the projected screen. They are allowed to bring their paper of written description with them, and I hand them each a piece of paper where they will mark their guesses. I show them a document of a set of paintings that are very similar to the painting that was just described to them by their teams. The set also includes the painting that was described to them. I go through the set about 3 times, one by one through each painting which also has a different letter associated with it. They have to guess which one is the right painting that was described to them. They may use their notes. They then mark the letter of the painting on their paper. Each team that guesses the right painting gets a point.

Here is the set of paintings from which the writer has to detect the correct one for the first round:

We then repeat the rounds, each time using another "writer" who will have the job of writing down the descriptions and guessing at the correct answer. To make the game more challenging, you can make each round of description shorter. As we were running out of time at the end of the game, I made the last round only 2 minutes.

Here are the paintings I used for the next two rounds, and the set that goes with them. As you can see, the last round is the most difficult!