You give a student a notepad which has a different word written on each page. Your student chooses one of the words… and you know what word he chose!
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- Read your volunteer’s mind.
- You give a student a notepad which has a different word written on each page. Your student chooses one of the words… and you know what word he chose!
- Skills: Listening, reading & speaking (production)
- For practicing: Vocabulary
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The original trick
Before we see how I use this trick in the classroom, watch this video of the trick being performed on Britain’s Got Talent!
The Classroom version: Demonstration & Explanation
Now of course after that performance, I’m not going to come off looking particularly good, but take notice of the changes I have made to adapt the trick to the classroom.
At the end of this explanation video I mentioned that you can use this Svengali notepad concept to force words or numbers on your students which you can then use to guess other things.
As I mention in the explanation video, the Svengali concept actually began as a way of forcing a particular card on your volunteer from a deck of playing cards, so before we continue let’s see an example of how the Svengali concept can be used with a deck of cards…
Think-a-bit tip: 
If you take three or four different pre-prepared notepads to class, you can repeat the trick three or four times, and if you are able to swap a notepad without anyone noticing (just put it away in your drawer after your student has finished with it, and then when you want to repeat the trick, take out another notepad) then this will give the impression that each time you do the trick you are using the same notepad, but different words are coming out each time!
Next trick: “Six Envelopes” >>