One of the most complete and all-round tricks on this course (for teachers of foreign languages, anyway) which uses the concept of cheating to get an edge… with this trick, which is a great trick to use at the beginning of the school year as an ice-breaker, you’ll have your volunteers talking about different people who are important in their lives; describing their appearance and their personality, their age, their work… and- especially important- practicing the third person singular.
This trick also allows you to engage and interact with all your students (not just your volunteer) so that everyone becomes involved in the trick and also gets the chance to participate and practice English.
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- Read your students’ minds.
- Lots of opportunities to engage with your pupils, and to get the whole class to participate.
- Skills: Listening & speaking (interaction)
- For practicing: Talking about people; appearance and personality, age, work, hobbies… etc. Third person singular.
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Demonstration & Explanation
Real Case Scenario
Notice in this real-case scenario how I get the most out of the trick by constantly engaging with my volunteer so that he practices as much English as possible, and notice especially how I get other students involved and become participants in the trick and also get the chance to practice their English.
Additionally, I did this trick in the very first class of the year, so it also served as an ice-breaker!
Think-a-bit tip: 
Since as a teacher you typically know your students’ parents’ names, the town they were born, the street where they live, and even their ID or passport number, you can put that information on each of the flashcards and actually let your students choose whichever card they want without forcing a particular card onto them. Now you can guess the information by elimination; for example: “I am seeing the letter Z… is there a letter Z in the word that you’re thinking? No? Oh no, sorry… it’s not a Z, it’s an S… there’s an S in the word that you’re thinking, isn’t there? Yes, I see it clearly now”.
This technique could allow you to eliminate an option or two, and with repetition will allow you to reduce the possible words down to one quite easily. You can guess a word without the need to hear the student tell you what the word was!
Next trick: “Three Book Tests + Hollow” >>