| Body | This activity has students asking and answering questions in order to solve a crime: who stole the stickers? It is an information gap activity. Students must interact with their classmates to ask and answer questions about someone’s appearance and what they saw or heard someone do. This activity was inspired by the sample lesson in the LFO Unit Planner Guide and comes from a CASLS' presentation at ACTFL, 2015. This activity was designed with LFO to Go use in mind, but can easily be used without the app.
Learning objectives:
- Students will be able to say what someone looks like.
- Students will be able to ask some simple questions.
- Students will be able to answer questions about something they saw or heard.
Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking
Materials needed: Who Stole the Stickers handout and copies of [suspect cards] for students
Procedure:
- Set the stage: Tell students the story of how something was stolen. For example, in this activity we used the stickers from the CASLS’ booth. During lunch someone stole the stickers from the CASLS’ booth! The CASLS team has narrowed down the suspects to these 6 people. We need your help to figure out who it was. Another idea: Last night the school mascot was stolen! The school police have narrowed down the suspects, and now they need the students help to figure out which suspect is the culprit.
- Handout [suspect cards] to each student. Tell them to only look at their card. This is the person they saw nearby the CASLS’ booth along with something they heard or saw that person do.
- Pass out the Who Stole the Stickers handout. Let students know their task is to go around and ask each other if they saw anyone near the CASLS’ booth, and if yes, what did they look like? Did they say or do anything? They will use the handout to keep track of what people say and to help them figure out who stole the stickers. The teacher can model a conversation for the students. If using LFO to Go instruct students to record themselves while speaking with other students.
- Once students have spoken to many other classmates and have a guess as to who is the guilty suspect, gather the class back together. Ask for students’ guesses as to who the culprit is, writing their guesses on the board. Then as a class review each suspect and the clues that go with each one. At the end, reveal who the culprit is and see who was correct.
Notes: In this activity, we have two clues per suspect, one that seems suspicious and one that provides an alibi, except for the culprit because both of their clues seem suspicious. This means two students with the same suspect will have two different clues. Just because a student spoke with one student about a particular suspect doesn’t mean they should skip over speaking with someone else who has the same one because their clue might be different. Depending on how many students you have, you will want to coordinate the number of suspects and clues accordingly.
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