Paper Telephone

Purpose: A super fun game that is guaranteed to generate a lot of laughter and gives learners a chance to practice writing in a low pressure setting.

Prep Time: None

Materials Needed: One piece of blank paper per learner.

Procedure:

1. Give each learner a piece of blank paper. Have them write their name and one sentence on the top of the paper. The sentence can be centered around a specific topic (e.g. write a sentence about family, your community, your job, etc), use a specific grammar form (e.g. present continuous, past, future, etc), or can be open to whatever the learners want to write.
2. The learners pass their paper to their neighbor on the right. Everyone reads the sentence on their new paper, then draws a picture that depicts what the sentence says directly under the sentence. The picture should be fairly small so that multiple pictures and sentences will fit on the same page. The learners then fold the top of the paper over so that the sentence is hidden, and only the picture is visible.
3. The learners pass their paper to their neighbor on the right. Everyone looks at the picture on their new paper, then writes a sentence that explains what the picture shows. The learners then fold the top of the paper over so that the picture is hidden, and only the second sentence is visible.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 several times.
5. After all of the learners have had a chance to draw several times and write several times, have everyone unfold the paper that they were holding and give it back to the learner that wrote the original sentence.
6. Invite learners to take turns reading the first sentence and the last sentence out loud. There is usually a big difference between the original sentence and the final sentence which makes for some hilarious reading!