Cluedo - a speaking activity

Cluedo  (or Clue if you live in the USA), as you all know, is a board game, card game, and a computer game in which players try to discover the identity of the murderer of Dr David Black (UK) or Mr John Boddy (US).

Using their powers of deduction (or in the case of my little sister, random, wild guesses), players have to identify the name of the killer, the place the crime was committed and the weapon used.

I always use Cluedo as the example for explaining what a noun is: A person (Miss Scarlett), a place (the library) a thing (lead piping).

A few years ago I happened to be at a CPD event at Ian Ramsey School in Stockton-on-Tees where one of the presenters, John Connor, introduced me to a Cluedo-based guessing game to get students speaking.

So here's how to play:

1) Either make or find a worksheet or create a powerpoint with the key information on it
    Here's a favourite of yr8 boys:

2) The teacher (or a student) writes on a mini-whiteboard the 3 key pieces of information:

e.g. le chien, la chambre, les devoirs

3) Students try to guess by saying full sentences. For example: Je pense que c'était le chat dans le jardin sur la table.

4) For each piece of correct information given the guesser is awarded one point. The teacher can only say "zéro" "un" "deux" or "fantastique!" 

5) The student who guesses all 3 pieces of information correctly wins and then gets to be "the teacher".

I have found, with most groups, that the students forget that they are speaking in the target language and really enjoy this activity.