Taboo! - a fun way to preteach or recap subject terminology

So you're probably familiar with the word game (not the hideous 1990's alcopop) where one player describes a word and others have to guess it. This is a fantastic game for the classroom, in any subject: it brings loads of energy to the class; practices students' communication and recall skills; embeds key terminology; and, most importantly, gets the students engaged in each other's learning.

There's loads of ways to do this, but here's how I play it with large (20+) classes:

- divide up the students into teams of 3 or 4;
- one player from each team comes to the front;
- I show them all the same word (this is important);
- in silence, they return to their groups;
- I count down "3,2,1,Go!" and they have to explain the word to their groups;
- the first person to shout out the correct answer, wins a point for their group.



It's worth you, as the teacher, standing in the middle of the room for this, as close as possible to all groups, to avoid accusations of bias! I also like to award extra points to students making a real effort to explain the target words in detail: this not only rewards students for their knowledge, but also encourages them to stick to the spirit of the game. 

In terms of time, there's no prep on your part involved, yet it's a great way to recap or introduce key, subject-specific terminology. It's always fun, always loud and always contentious! If they need calming down afterwards, give them an off-the-cuff spelling test on the words that just featured in taboo - it clams them up every time.  

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