Twenty Questions

Skill Level: Intermediate - Advance Levels

Duration: Flexible

Objective: To practice asking questions.

The objective of Twenty Questions is for the audience to ask and correctly guess what their classmate is thinking before the twenth question. The teacher starts by nominating a category for the participant from the following list:

Twenty Question Categories

1. Animals
2. Country
3. Famous actor
4. Famous actress
5. Famous band
6. Famous book
7. Food
8. Movie
9. Occupation
10. Song

Instructions

1. Explain to the class the objective of the game.

HINT: At this stage, its a good idea to write down model questions. Use such words as "what", "why", "when", "were" and "how".

2. To start the game, the teacher begins by selecting a volunteer, and by selecting a category from the list above to give to the participant.

3. The participant thinks of something related to the word and writes it down on a piece of paper. This ensures that the word doesn't get changed during the game. They should not reveal the answer to anyone until the end of the game.

For example the participant might be given a category such as "occupation" and the related word might be "doctor."

4. The audience can start to guess what the mystery word is. Questions can only be answered with either a "yes" or a "no" reply. The game ends when the twenth question is asked, or someone correctly guesses the answer.

5. At the end of the game, the person with the highest score wins.

Use the following format to give out scores:

(1 point) - to the audience member if the answer is yes, and if the question is grammatically correct;
(1 point) - to the participant if the answer is no;
(3 points) - for the correct guess.