I love thinking of ways to disguise Comprehensible Input as a game. I load them up for as long as I can with CI, and then when they’re getting tired, I switch it to a game and carry on with the CI.  I’m sneaky like that.

At my school we haven’t completely abandoned thematic units and I came up with this little game as a way to give them lots of input and  repetitions for clothing vocabulary and the verb “wears”. It ended up being so fun that we played it a lot last year.   And what’s even better? It’s a Zero Prep game! Hallelujah! 

To prep: Think to yourself, I think I’ll play the ¿Qué lleva? Clothing game. That’s all. Move on with your life.

To play:  Teacher puts a student “in charge” of selecting the Secret Student. Teacher steps out into the hallway for 10-20 seconds. (If you have the kind of class that cannot be trusted, face the corner and they’ll have to do this part totally silently. We all have classes like that…don’t worry.)

The person in charge selects a student and the entire class has to know who that person is and notice what they’re wearing. 

Then the teacher steps back in and all the students stand up. Let the input commence! The teacher asks yes/no questions with the goal of figuring out who the Secret Student is, based on what they’re wearing.

Teacher asks:

Is the student wearing blue jeans?

Class responds Yes.

Teacher says, Thank you. If you’re NOT wearing blue jeans, please sit down. The non blue jean wearing kids sit down and the teacher asks another question:

So…this student is wearing blue jeans. Is the student wearing white shoes with their blue jeans? 

Class responds No.

Teacher says. Ok, if you are wearing white shoes, please sit down. 

And the teacher asks another question. The teacher tries to guess the Secret Student within 10 questions. If she does, the teacher wins, if she can’t, the class wins. The students who are eliminated sit down, like in the game Guess Who?  and the students who remain standing might be the Secret Student. After asking 9 questions, the teacher should choose one of the standing students for their 10th question:

Is the secret student Shelby?!

If Shelby was the Secret Student, the teacher gets 1 point. If Shelby was not the Secret Student, the class gets 1 point. Then the teacher goes outside again, the students select another Secret Student and the game begins again.

Play 3-4 times and then play again the following class. They’ll get lots of reps of “is wearing” and as many clothing articles as you want to focus on. I love this game because you’re totally in control of the input and they think they’re trying to outsmart you! Sneaky, sneaky CI teacher! 

Don’t stop with clothing! This would be fun to play with personality traits and physical descriptions as well… Is the Secret Student tall? Is the Secret Student blond? Does the Secret Student talk a lot in Spanish class? The possibilities are endless! Kind of like 3-D Guess Who! (Thanks for the sweet name, Wendy!)