Tell Me about Myself.doc

Tell Me about MyselfLevel: Any Level This game works well with students at pre-intermediate level or above and can be adapted accordingly.. Instead of using sentences to describe your li

Tell Me about Myself

Level: Any Level

This game works well with students at pre-intermediate level or above and can be adapted accordingly It is an original way of introducing yourself (as a teacher) to a class for the first time, but could also be used later on

Prepare in advance, on an overhead transparency or white-board, a mind map of yourself Instead of using sentences to describe your life, use single words, numbers, dates, symbols and illustrations where possible

For example I include information about my life in England, names of siblings, date of birth, name of hometown etc (My hometown is Stoke-on-Trent which I then illustrate with

a cup and saucer - the Potteries, and a football - Stoke City FC It keeps them guessing.)

I include information about my husband (name and illustration of job) children (names, ages, birthdays) You can add your shoe size, height, illustrations of your hobbies etc I draw a needle and thread - sewing, a pair of skis - I enjoy skiing, and a pencil - drawing Any kind of information can be included Use your imagination! I live in Sweden and draw

a picture of a snowman with a cross through it to illustrate that I don¥t like the winter! Get your students to tell you what the information means For example

• July - is that when your birthday is?

• Does the cup and saucer mean you drink tea?

Try and get a good mix of obvious and less obvious information For example, when I drew

a fish (to illustrate that I kept tropical fish) it provoked questions like:

• Do you eat a lot of fish?

• Do you enjoy fishing?

• Is your star sign Pisces?

Give them a clue if they’re having problems guessing

This game has worked wonderfully for me in many classes of varying levels To follow up, get you students to take a few minutes to prepare something similar individually, and then work in pairs guessing what the information means about their partner