This set works best in small groups where each student gets at least three or four cards. They then have a few minutes to prepare THREE statements regarding each topic. TWO statement should be TRUE; one statement should be FALSE – hence the name “Two Truths, One Lie”. Other students should then ask questions to identify the false statement.
The goal is for the student who is making the statements to make it as difficult as possible for the other students to guess the false statement. For example, for the statement, “Three cities you have never visited,” a student could mention two cities in other countries – one of which they have never visited, the other one of which they have visited (which would be the false statement), and then surprise other students by mentioning a third city in their own country that others would assume they have visited but which they have actually never visited.
Example for a student in Korea: “I have never visited London, New York, or Busan.” Since Busan is a major city in Korea, most Korean students would assume their classmate is making true statements about never having been to London or New York, but making a false statement about never having visited Busan. In fact, the student in has never visited the city, and the one they are “lying” about is London, which they had indeed visited the previous year.
For added difficulty and possibly more fun, put a limit on the time students have to come up with three statements.
Remember: The point of this exercise is for students to practice vocabulary as well as the asking and answering of questions.
Each student, or pair, or small group of students gets one card. They then have a few minutes to prepare a short story starting with the cue on the card. For additional speaking practice, other students should be encouraged to come up with questions to ask after each story.
Each student, or pair, or small group of students gets one card. They then have a few minutes to prepare a short speech (one minute or longer, as you prefer). For additional speaking practice, other students should be encouraged to come up with questions to ask after the speech.
Depending on the number of students in your class, each student (or a pair or small group) gets between three and six cards (more cards might be too much for students who are not that familiar with English idioms).
Students should think of a situation related to an idiom. Individual students should tell their partner about the situation culminating in the idiom, or in the case of a pair or small group, tell the class.
Example: “It rained so much last Saturday that our trip to the zoo got cancelled. I was very disappointed. But then I had more time to study for my test on Monday, so I thought it was really a blessing in disguise that the trip got cancelled.”
Students may be allowed to write out their stories, but should be encouraged to look up and speak – not-read – what they have written.
Option 1: Students make individual sentences with each word on the card.
Option 2: Students have a few minutes to make up a brief story where they use all the words. With this option students may write out their sentences, but should be encouraged to look up and speak – not-read – their sentences. Students could also work in pairs or small groups, working with one card at a time.
Option 3: Use these cards in combination with grammar review.
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With some words, the student is reminded that the meaning intended is a noun, or a verb, or an adjective, if the particular word has meanings in more than one word type. Please note that not all such cases have been marked – only the more common ones.
It is often the case that a word could have more than one meaning, even more than one meaning as a noun or a verb. In these cases, students should be encouraged to make sentences with as many meanings as they can think of.
A note on the randomness of the collections of words on the cards: Sometimes it may seem that the person who created the cards had reason to compile a certain set of words on one card. Rest assured that I worked off a list compiled by the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and with the exceptions of one or two words, simply added the words as they appeared according to their usage rank.
