Activity-linked lesson plans and materials
© Elac
Murder Night (Level A1/A2)
4.
Before the lesson:
Put the missing poster on the classroom door or a
place where the students are likely to see it as
they enter the classroom.
Copy the newspaper report text (one for each pair
of students) and the ‘Questions, questions’ page
back-to-back. Fold the copy in half so only the
questions are visible.
5.
Introduction:
Make sure the class understand that tonight’s
activity is a Murder Mystery and that they
understand what’s involved in that.
Stage 1 – Listening – 20 minutes
1. Tell the class that you are very sad today
because you’ve just heard some bad news
about a very serious crime that happened last
night. You can refer to the poster that they
have just seen. Elicit / supply teddy bear.
2. Put the class in pairs and hand out the folded
copy so only the questions show. Go through
the questions to see if there are any
comprehension problems.
3. Read the newspaper report (see materials
section) slowly. The students only need to
listen at this stage.
4. Let the students discuss the questions and
settle on answers. Monitor this carefully so
you know which (if any) questions are causing
difficulty.
5. Either get the students to open the paper so
that they can read the text and check their
answers, or read the text aloud again before
letting the students read the text themselves.
Check a few words – sad, angry, hope etc.
Stage 2 – Question form focus – 8 – 10 minutes
1. Ask some questions:
Where did Humphrey meet his friends?
What did the Course Director say? (“We are
all …”)
2. Write the main question forms on the board.
There are two:
Where was Humphrey?
Wh- + to be + person / noun
What did the Course Director say?
Wh- + did /does +noun + verb
With a lower level class, these forms may
need teaching: for others, it’s revision.
3. Get the students to turn over the page and go
through the question forms at the top. The
first one is the simple form; the others use the
auxiliary, ‘do / does / did’.
Now get them to do the exercise together in
pairs.
At the end, combine the pairs into fours to
check while you monitor for problems.
Stage 3 – alibi – 25 minutes
1. Choose a confident student and ask him/her,
“What time did you go to bed last night?”
“Where were you at 6 o’clock?”
2. Direct the students to the pictures at the
bottom of the Questions page. Elicit or supply
interview, question (verb), suspect, police
officer. Get the concept of alibi clear – it
means ‘somewhere else’ in Latin.
3. Four (or five if you have uneven numbers) will
be police officers and the rest will be suspects.
Divide the class accordingly.
4. Explain the game:
a) The police officers must try to break the
suspects’ alibis by asking questions to
individuals.
b) The suspects must agree on their story
that they were together doing something
between 5 and 7 o’clock last night.
5. Put the police officers in pairs and get them to
write some questions for the suspects.
6. Take the suspects outside the room and put
them in pairs to agree on their stories – give
them some clues such as watching TV, playing
football with friends, going for a coffee etc.
7. Return and help the police officers with
appropriate questions forms.
8. Bring the suspects back into the room and set
up the tables to simulate a police interview
room.
9. Choose the first pair of suspects and send one
of them outside the room.
10. Get the first pair of police officers to interview
suspect #1 and note the answers. You may
have to help a little here by prompting
questions such as “Who was with you?”,
“What did you buy?”, “What did you watch on
TV?” etc. They soon get the idea.
11. Now send suspect #1 out of the room and call
in suspect #2. The police officers ask them the
same questions and compare the answers in
an effort to break the alibi.
12. Select the next pairs of suspects and repeat
until all the suspects have been interviewed.
At the end of the game the police officers
decide who stole Humphrey.
Finally, review the language they have learned and
practised. They will need it for tonight’s activity.
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Can you help?
Name: Humphrey
Date of Birth: 15.7.2010
Height: 18cm
Weight: 135g
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Black
www.findhumphrey.com
If you have any information
Please contact The Elac Course Director
ELAC REWARD £10,000
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Newspaper Report
The police will give some
money to anyone with
information about Humphrey
the teddy bear. Humphrey
was stolen last night.
The last time anyone saw Humphrey was
at 18:00. This was when he left the Elac
Office to meet some of his friends in the
canteen. The police think that he was
stolen just after the end of an activity
session at about 18:30 last night. The
Course Director of Elac said, “We are all
very sad and angry to hear what happened
to Humphrey. We hope that Humphrey
will return very quickly and safely.”
Nobody knows why somebody stole
Humphrey but there are a few ideas. One
idea is that some students have Humphrey
in and want a lot of money from Elac. If
they don’t get a lot of money, then they
won’t let Humphrey go free. The police
want to speak to anyone who saw anything
or anyone who has any information about
Humphrey. The police will give £1000 for
any information.
Fold here:
Listen and answer the questions about last night:
a) Where did Humphrey go last night?
b) What time was it?
c) How does everyone feel?
d) Who knows why this happened?
e) What is one idea?
f) Who do the police want to speak to?
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Questions, questions
Where
What time
How
Who
Who
was
did
does
do
do
Humphrey
the crime
the Course Director
the police
the police
last night?
happen
feel
think
want
?
?
did the crime?
to talk to?
Put the words in the correct order to make questions
a) you where at o’clock night last were nine?
b) were who with you then?
c) does word what mean this?
d) school go do to you where?
e) lesson finish this time what does?
f) did go when London to you?
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