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Yes / No Story

Activity type: : this is a storytelling activity in which students have to ask short questions to put together a story

Level: : Pre-intermediate and above

Teacher's notes:

  1. Printout the instructions below.
  2. Take two students out of the class and give them the instructions. Explain that they are going to be asked questions which they have to answer yes or not to. The questions will be about what they did the night before.
  3. The students will answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on what the last letter of the last word in the questions ends with. If the last word ends in a consonant, the answer is ‘yes.’ If the last word ends in a vowel, the answer is ‘no.’
  4. The rest of the class should be told that they are going to ask the student who will be sitting in front of them ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions e.g. Did you go out last night? Did you eat anything? Etc. They are not allowed to ask open questions e.g. what did you eat? All the questions should be aimed at finding out what the student did the night before.
  5. Divide the class in half and place a chair in front of each half.
  6. Bring the two students into class and tell them to take their seats in front of the other students.
  7. Tell the questioners that they have to find out a) what the students did the night before, if they can and b) why they are answering ‘yes’ to some questions and ‘no’ to others. In other words they have to break the code.
  8. The ‘questioners’ should start asking questions trying to find out what the students did the night before. Note that at some points the answers may be nonsense; remind the students that they must find out the criteria for saying ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ For example: did you go out? -yes did you stay in? –yes
  9. When they have done this for a sufficient period of time, ask the ‘questioners’ in each team to try to work out the code. If they can, they win!
  10. As a follow-up activity ask two students to leave the room and devise their own code. Repeat the above activity with the new code.


Instructions:

You are going to be asked questions by your classmates. You can only say yes or no.

If the last word in the question ends with a consonant, say yes. If the last word of the question ends with a vowel, say no.


Instructions:

You are going to be asked questions by your classmates. You can only say yes or no.

If the last word in the question ends with a consonant, say yes. If the last word of the question ends with a vowel, say no.
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