Speaking: Prized Possession Swap
Materials: None No. of Students:6 -12 Time: 15 – 25 minutes Age: Teens/Adults
This is a speaking exercise which helps students to become more descriptive when describing objects and helps them to become more persuasive. Set the scene by pretending to hold an object and say, “I have here in my hands one of my most prized possessions”, then proceed to describe the object.
Example:
“It’s an ornate, regular sized, antique, cylindrical shaped, silver, British letter writing pen that used to belong to my great grandfather. “
Students are instructed to think up their own imaginary prized possession. Once all of the students have an imaginary object, pair up the students. Explain to students that they should try and describe their object using as many different types of adjectives as they can using adjectives in the correct order.
Adjective order (on WB):
Quality or opinion, Size, Age, Shape. Color, Material, place of origin, or material)
purpose or qualifier.
Students should then ask each other questions about each other’s objects.
Example questions (on WB) :
How did you come by it?
Why is it special to you?Where do you keep it ?
What do you do with it?
Students should be encouraged to think of their own questions.
| Opinion | |
| Size | |
| Shape | |
| Condition | |
| Age | |
| Colour | |
| Pattern | |
| Origin | |
| Material |
The objective of the task is to make your object sound as attractive as possible. At the end of the round decide whether you want to swap objects with the person you are speaking to. You must swap objects at least once during the game. Remember what the other person says as if you swap, you’ll need to be able to describe it to the next person.
Milling: Each player speaks to someone new and repeats the process.
Twists: After a few rounds it might be a good idea to introduce a few changes. Now explain that you are going to teach the students a sales technique to help them to persuade their next partner to swap items.
.
Twist 1: Features and benefits
Explain the concept of “features and benefits”. Players have to think of as many features and benefits of their item as possible.
Example: “The pen has a clip on it which enables you to easily keep it in your top pocket”.
Twist 2: Overcoming a negative
Think of a negative comment about the other person’s item. The other player then has to turn that negative into a positive.
Example:
Player 1: “The problem with pens is that they run out of ink.”
Player 2: “This is true, but the fact that this pen is refillable, makes it more environmentally friendly.”