Guess Who and Where: Adobe Express Animated Character

Review vocabuarly for geographical locations (city, mountains, lake, beaches, waterfall, river, desert, etc.) with images.

Review vocabulary for appearance and personality.

Use a picture dictionary and/or websites such as Learning Chocolate.

Intermediate and advanced students can be assigned to brainstorm or fill out a mind map in order to elicit vocabulary they already know and fill in gaps.

Play audio (or video without projecting) of various places: beaches, busy streets, cities where people are speaking in other languages. Before each clip, ask students to guess where these places are based on the sounds they hear.

Tell students that they are going to think of a place and find an image of it online and save to the desktop. This place can be their hometown or country, a place they like to go now, their work place, a famous monument or park or building, a place they would like to visit in the future or a place they have visited in the past.

Then they are going to write a short script about themselves with some information that gives only clues about their appearance or personality / behavior. 

Their classmates will need to guess where they are and who they are.

Demonstrate by sharing an example that you create about yourself or someone else who is not a student but is familiar to everyone.

Then provide students with a sample script as a model or a paragraph frame or questions to answer in complete sentences. Model yourself using the frame or answering the questions. Make sure to stress to students not to say their names or give obvious identifiers.

Example:

Can you guess who and where I am?

I am __________ and I often _________. I have ______________ and _______________. I like ....

OR

1. Describe your appearance. Are you tall or short? What color is your hair? What color are your eyes?

2. Describe your personality. Are you quiet or talkative? Are you serious or funny? 

3. Tell about your job, interests, or hobbies.

4. What is one thing about you that your teacher and classmates don't know?

Have students submit their written scripts. 

Provide feedback or collect common errors and create a mini lesson.

When students are ready, demo first how to download an image for the place they have chosen as the "mystery place" for the background, and then demonstrate how to use the site. Ideally give students class time to work on the assignment. After they have downloaded their animated character, help them to email it to you or send it to you another way.

Have students revise their scripts and then practice pronunciation with you by reading their scripts 1:1 with you, calling you to leave a voicemail message, or by using a voice recording tool on their phone or on a computer or online using a site such as Online Voice Recorder or Vocaroo.

Provide feedback on pronunciation.

Play each student's animated speaking character. Have students either call out where and who each animated charcter scene is depicting or take notes and tell their guess after all have been shown.

Students will be able to carry out short digital projects in which they communicate about familiar topics and experiences.