Level: Upper intermediate
Location: Connected Classroom
Language Focus: going to, modals of deduction (present & past).
Game: The Magician
A nice little game with plenty of language opportunities. First you see the magician’s stage with the trick ready to go. You can then watch the trick performed. You then get the chance to see how the trick is really done as you point and click the screen in the order each part of the trick is done. Here’s the beginning and end of the first trick:
Play
- Open the game and show learners the first screen.
- Get learners to predict what the magician’s trick is (left above).
- Then ‘show the trick’ (short video sequence to image above right).
- Learner’s then guess how the trick was done (speaking or writing).
- They then direct someone at the keyboard to repeat it. This is done by pointing the mouse cursor and clicking parts of the magician in the correct order.
Example language:
As learners guessed how each trick was done I monitored and input language as necessary. It’s also quite fun – especially if you haven’t watched the trick before yourself – to join in with the guessing. Great way to model the target language yourself and possibly inject a little humour into the process. I thought my suggestion that ‘it might be a projected image of a bird – look at the circle of light around it’ was quite good. After a or two minute I interrupted and in feedback I wrote any new language as well as the best suggestions on the board. For this I reduced the window the game was in so it wasn’t visible but was still ready to continue with. New language was highlighted so as to draw learners’ attention to it and also make it easier for them to see and use later.
The Magic Tricks
There are about half a dozen tricks in total but I’ve never really got past the first few. The first three are enough to practice the language with and, to be honest, some of the later tricks get quite fantastical and could prove to be too challenging linguistically. Take a look at the screenshot on the left here to see how complicated things can get. Both red levers on the left and right, the two guys, the chains, the pendulum, hidden keys, a screen, the cage and the candle (a red herring by the way) all make this quite a difficult task. The first few tricks involve:
- Disappearing bird
- Levitating woman
- Escape the water tank
These are quite well-known magic tricks and so learners should have a good idea about what happens in the trick, remember the trick once it has happened and have some good ideas over how the trick was actually done. The added bonus is that it’s quite fun discovering how they are actually done. Hope none of you are too disillusioned by finding out it isn’t actually magic after all.
Post Play
- At home learners play the game and choose one trick to describe to the class. They make notes and in the next class they describe what the audience sees when the trick is performed and then how the trick is done.
- Learners write up how a trick of their choosing is presented and done.
- If you or your learners can research a card trick or a coin trick to perform for the next class then get learners to use the target language to guess how it might have been done.
