Just the Facts

Just the Facts is a simple game where students practice speaking and listening. It's fun, too, and can be used as a warmer to a particular topic. If done in this way, it will also help introduce students to a new area of study and also allow the teacher to understand what their students know already about the area of study.

The activity is very flexible in that you can adapt the basic idea to suit your way of teaching and different scenarios. What is presented here is the basic idea.

Preparation

To begin with you need a topic to discuss. This could be drawn at random from a pile of cards you have prepared earlier, or it could be related to a new topic you'd like the class to think about.

For example, suppose your class is going to watch a video documentary about Spain. You can simply give your class a few minutes to think about (but not write down) what they know about Spain in preparation to telling the rest of the class a fact about the country.

Running the Activity

Have the class stand in a circle. Each student then, in turn, has to say a simple fact about the topic. For example:

• Spain can be hot.
• Spain is in Europe.
• Picasso was born in Spain.

And so on, around and around the circle.

To begin with it is fairly straightforward, however there can be no repetition and so your students have to think on their feet (literally) and keep producing facts. Sooner or later someone will either not be able to come up with something new or they will say something not true.

• Bullfighting was invented in Spain.

At this point the other students can challenge the statement. If you are playing the game informally this can lead to a discussion of the "fact" or if you play the game as a team game, it can mean winning or losing points.