CATESOL Five-Minute Activity

KT Taylor

Things to watch out for: make sure your students know that it may be breaking to the rules (depending on the level) to tell the person sitting in the hot seat what letter the word starts with, how many letters it has, what order it may come in the book or any other way of describing the word that may not emphasize meaning. Emphasize the importance of using synonyms, sample sentences, examples, and definitions.  Sometimes one student might take over the game. A strategy for this might be to disqualify (temporarily or permanently) students who give more than one hint at a time. If you are looking for more of a competitive edge, you may choose to play a timed version.

Student-only Hot Seat: Depending on the class, it may be suitable for the teacher to sit out completely. In this way, there is a student writing the word on the board, rather than the teacher. The students can choose who will be next in the game rotation. In this version, the teacher acts mostly as a referee, ensuring students follow game rules.
 
Competitive Hot Seat: In this version, there are two students and/or two teams trying to guess the same word. The game is set up the same with the exception of their being two chairs in the front of the classroom. 
 
Taboo Style: This version works well with advanced students, especially those who have played the games on many occasions. It also works well for words that can be guessed too easily. In this version, the game can have the teacher, a selected student, or all of the students writing on the board. With this version, you’ll write an ‘x’ for things the students are not allowed to say. For example, say you or a student writes the word “dog” on the board. Then you may write “X- bark”, “X-pet”, or “X- tail”. Sometimes you can set limits to these, but sometimes it makes for a more interesting game if the student decides to put a lot of words that aren’t allowed to be said. For this version, be sure to let the students know they cannot start explaining the word until the writer turns around and says “Go”, otherwise they may say a word they were not allowed to mention. 
 
Silent Hot Seat: The game is set up the same way, except no one is allowed to use their words. The students have to elicit the word from the person in the hot seat by pantomiming. 
 
Antonym Hot Seat: In this version, students are only allowed to use antonyms to describe the word.