Taboo

To play taboo you describe an English word and another person has to guess what the word been described is. The word can be a food, an animal, a famous person or place, the name of a movie, a school subject, anything you want. Of course you don't say the word.

Teacher: It is an animal. It has a trunk, it has big ears, it is the biggest land animal, etc...
Student: Is it an elephant?

When I play I usually describe three or four words to the class first. They learn how to play and I can control the class. The words I choose depends on their level and age.

I emphasis that the description has to be three or more sentences, students have to wait until the description is finished before guessing the word and students only get one guess each. Then I pick a student to describe one of the words I have prepared. I usually pick a strong student to go first.

Later after the class has played several times, I put them into groups and give each group a list of words to play the game themselves. I put the words face down and one by one they take a word. They take turns describing the words and the other people in their group have to guess what the word is.

Feel free to download the taboo list I have created for my class. TabooWords