SoundScotland
Call my Bluff
This activity was inspired by Helen Sullivan (PT English, Auchinleck Academy in
East Ayrshire) who has successfully used a version of the 'Call My Bluff' game
over several years with her S2 classes.
'Call My Bluff' has been a useful game for language teachers for many years.
This Scots language version of the game is a fun way of raising awareness of
Scots and its distinctive vocabulary.
When learners research, script and perform the game themselves, 'Call My
Bluff' becomes a learning activity that develops talking, listening, reading and
writing skills:
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Conveying information, instructions and directions (reading out words and
definitions offered to contestants)
Talking in teams (debating what the correct answer is)
Audience awareness (trying to make definitions credible to listeners)
Listening for information, instruction and directions (listening to the
words and definitions offered in order to make a decision)
Listening in teams (listening to opinions and ideas of others in the team)
Reading for information (using dictionaries)
Functional writing (writing in the genre of dictionary definitions).
Instructions
Preparation
Call My Bluff can take place over two sessions. In the first session the pupils
research and script the questions. The game itself takes place in the second
session. The game works best with teams of four.
Each team selects one unfamiliar looking word from the Scots School Dictionary.
Three members of the team write a false definition for the word, including
pronunciation, information about what part of speech the word is, and an
example of usage. The aim is to make the definition as credible as possible. One
member of the team rewrites the correct dictionary definition in the same style
as the other definitions.
SoundScotland
Play
One member from each team reads out the team's word and choice of meanings
while the other teams listen. There is one minute consultation time before they
must choose their answer and the game moves on to the next team's word.
At the end of the game, the answer sheets are collected in, and each team
reveals the correct meaning of its word.
The winning team is the one that has guessed the correct meaning of the most
words.
Download an example of this game created as a PowerPoint presentation. (For
this interactive PowerPoint to work properly, macro security needs to be set to
'Medium' in the Tools | Options | Security tab).