The interns and most of the ESL team is traveling this week. I stayed in Sofia to teach at English club and finish writing lesson plans for English Camp. Throughout the afternoon, the other American teacher and I had been texting because he wasn't feeling well and this final text led to combining our intermediate and advanced classes.
After doing some warm up activities, I informed my class that they each had an alter-ego that had been invited to Mr. Grim's mansion. I gave them their characters and as they read through them, I donned a black blazer and hat. When they were finished, I announced "I am Mr. Grim's butler. He was just discovered dead in the study. I'm sure one of you is to blame! If we can't figure out what happened, I will have all of you arrested and sent to jail for murder!" This was met with a few shocked faces and laughter, as I was incredibly dramatic. I took off my props and explained that they had to interview everyone else to find out what they were doing. Throughout the interviews, I would again don the butler outfit and interrupt them with new information. After they had interviewed everyone else, I divided them into groups and told them they had to come up with a theory of what had happened. Their theories were hilarious: from a poisoned protein shake to a conspiracy among a group of guests.
It was a great game! The students seemed to have fun and they spoke in English for over an hour! I had fun being the butler and listening to them speak in English. It's a fun way to teach when you need a lesson for multi-levels and have enough people to play all of the parts. We had a few more people than I had characters for, but they teamed up and were having great fun, too.