Chronicle: The Advanced Past Forms Speaking Game
A C2-level speaking board game where teens navigate 24 spaces by producing sophisticated narratives, analyses, and reflections using complex past tenses. Players encounter pair dialogues, team debates, mini-presentations, and embodied tasks that demand nuanced command of past perfect, past continuous, modal perfects, and reported speech in authentic communicative contexts.
A free Don't Wake the Giant Speaking Game for Teens at CEFR C2 level. Topic: Advanced past forms.
Speaking prompts on the board
- Ask your partner what they had already accomplished before they turned sixteen, and why it mattered to them.
- Describe a moment when you realised you had made a serious mistake. What had led to it?
- Your team must agree: which historical event could have changed the world had it occurred differently, and why?
- Act out a scene where you were waiting for someone who never arrived. Show your growing frustration through gesture.
- Ask your partner about a time they had been misunderstood. How did they clarify the misunderstanding?
- Explain how your perspective on a childhood belief has shifted since you were younger.
- You have 60 seconds to convince the class that a film or book you loved had been unfairly criticised.
- Compare how you had imagined adulthood when you were ten versus how you see it now.
- Discuss with your group: what should have been done differently during a global event you witnessed?
- Stand up and mime a skill you had been learning for years. Your partner guesses what it was.
- Ask your partner what they would have done differently in a decision they made last year.
- Reflect on a time when you had been judged unfairly. How did you respond to it then and now?
- You have 45 seconds to present a historical figure whose life might have been very different had they made one other choice.
- Your team must agree on whether social media had been a net positive or negative influence on your generation.
- Act out a conversation where you had been trying to explain something complex to someone who wasn't listening carefully.
- Explain a belief you had held for years but have now abandoned. What changed your mind?
- Describe the moment you realised that someone you trusted had been dishonest with you.
- Ask your partner about a skill they had mastered and whether they still use it today.
- You have 60 seconds to argue whether a controversial decision by a public figure had been justified by circumstances.
- Discuss with your group: what advice would you have given to your younger self, and why?
- Stand up and mime a habit you had been trying to break. Your partner explains what you were doing.
- Analyse how a relationship had evolved over time and what factors had shaped that change.
- Reflect on a moment when you had been afraid to take a risk. Do you regret that now?
- Ask your partner what they had been planning to do before an unexpected event interrupted their plans.