One of the tricky bits of acquisition-drive language instruction is providing meaningful, contextualized repetitions of new language without simply repeating the same sentences over and over again, or beating new information to death with a battery of activities that sap the fun out of what was learned. The Mysterious Person in a game that always has my students at the edge of their seats, processing language to win against their classmates.
Why should you play? Because the Mysterious Person is a fun way to get in repetitions on new language and information, while also insuring that you and the class are building greater knowledge of each others’ lives.
When do I use the Mysterious Person?
The Mysterious Person is a great review game that you can start using after about the first or second week of class, and whenever you like thereafter. You need enough shared class experiences so that students know information about each other (or figures from the Target Culture, perhaps!), which is the material for the game.
How do I do it? – Logistics
This can be played with no prep, or minimal prep!
No prep: Literally, you’re just making up the prompts/descriptions on the spot and providing them orally. (If you Just Can’t, you could also write them on the white board or doc cam.) Rely either on your own memory of what the class has learned together, or a compiled Write and Discuss document, for inspiration.
Minimal prep: Type up some descriptions of students from a given class, which you can project for your students to see. (I use the “Fade In One Paragraph At A Time” transition to make sure we’re focused on one description at a time.) These are descriptions using known information (preferences, ambitions, physical descriptions, etc.) that slowly get more specific so as to point towards one student that everyone knows about.
How do I do it? – Procedure
- Tell the class (probably in L2) that you are going to describe a Mysterious Person, who is someone from our very own class! If they know who the person is, they should raise their hand to give their guess.
- Using known language and your skills for comprehensibility, describe someone from the class. I recommend starting with the most general/vague (“The mysterious person…is a girl…” “The mysterious person…is wearing glasses…”) and slowly getting more specific (“The mysterious person likes…to read…comic books…” “The mysterious person is a girl…who is wearing glasses…and the glasses…are black…”). This helps you get in a lot of language input, while also keeping students on their toes.
- Describe the Mysterious Person as much as you care to, and then take guesses from the class – only from raised hands. If a student guesses wrong, celebrate them anyways, and then repeat the description! (I only allow each individual to guess once each “round.”)
- If a student guesses correctly, celebrate! Then: repeat the description, using the student’s name. I usually confirm with the student that everything I said was correct. You might also spell the student’s name in the L2 on the board, just for fun.
- After celebrating the guesser and the Mysterious Person, start describing a new Mysterious Person! Keep going until you run out of time, run out of known information to use as game material, or the class runs out of gas for playing the game.
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
This game is a great way to synthesize any new information you’ve learned about your students, and also retrieve old information from students’ memories! This leads nicely into an activity like Write and Discuss, where you co-create a written summary of the class conversation. (This can also serve you in the future as reminders to you as the instructor of what has been learned about the class. I have a horrifically bad memory, so I rely a lot on each class’ Write and Discuss document to have material for each Mysterious Person game.)
This activity can also be a nice sponge activity if you have a few awkward minutes, so maybe now that you’re finished – brrrrring! The period’s over and your kids played a fun review game.
Pro Tips!
- Add rules to prevent wild guessing! Students sometimes get squirrelly and want to guess after the first syllable. One rule I have used is that if someone guesses correctly, their whole row/group gets some sort of prize (points, stickers, candy, etc.), but if someone guesses incorrectly, the whole row/group cannot answer for the rest of that round. This helps put the brakes on students guessing at random without listening to the information.
- Don’t tolerate blurting! Blurting ruins the fun for everyone. If a student blurts an answer, you can 1) eliminate them from guessing for a round, 2) eliminate their row/group from guessing for a round, 3) make them write their answers on paper or a whiteboard, or 4) just end the game. Preempt this by modeling how to answer as part of the instructions, and cutting the game short if students aren’t ready to follow instructions.
- Weave in physical descriptions! I have had a hard time working on physical descriptions in my lower level classes – I just never seem to incorporate them as a topic somehow – so The Mysterious Person is an easy way to weave in tall/short, hair and eye colors, glasses, clothing, etc.
- Use famous people, perhaps from the Target Culture! This game is not only limited to the people in the classroom: you can also bring in figures from your school community, or people you have learned about from the Target Culture(s).
- Learn more about your students! If you’re struggling to come up with material to play the game with, it may be time to learn more about your students through other strategies, like Card Talk, Special Person Interviews, or Small Talk.
What if I want to learn more?
I wasn’t able to find tons of resources related to The Mysterious Person game, but I did find this great video of a teacher playing the game with her middle school French class!
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