Taboo (The Midnight Heist and The Laser Room): a teacher's guide

Teams · All ages · A2 to C1

A speaking game for teams. One student describes the word on the card without saying the red taboo words. Their team guesses before the time runs out.

What students do

One student from the team comes to the board and sees the card. They describe the word in their own words while their team guesses. If they say a taboo word, the alarm goes off.

How to run it

Pick the number of teams and the time for each turn on the start screen.
Got it when the team guesses (+1). Pass sends the card to the back. Alarm when a taboo word is said: the card is lost.
When time runs out, the turn passes to the next team. The game ends when the cards run out.
Kids play in The Midnight Heist, a museum at night. Teens and adults play in The Laser Room, with extra heist rules you can switch on or off. Switch looks on the start screen.

Ages and levels

Works for children, teens and adults. Best from A2, when students have enough words to talk around a word they can't say.

Lesson ideas

Describing words: teach "It's a kind of...", "You use it to...", "It's the opposite of..." first.
Topic review: a card for each new word in the unit.
Students make the cards: each group writes three cards, with taboo words, for another group.

After the game

Taboo counts as played in Class results but isn't scored, since the team decides when a guess is right.

See Taboo games

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