Ice Breakers: Celebrity 20 Questions

This is a pretty simple variation of the parlor game '20 Questions'. Before class, I take about the index cards and write names of celebrities on them with a magic marker.

In class, I explain to the students that they will have a name of a well-known person stuck to their back. They then have to stand up and circulate around the room, asking each person a maximum of 5 yes-or-no questions about who they might be. (I.E. 'Am I alive? Am I female? Am I a politician? Am I young?' Etc.)
Hopefully they will be able to figure out who they are. The only problem I have encountered is when I use movie stars. I try to select people who my German students would know, but many don't frequent the cinema. But they always giggle at the person who 'is' Helmut Kohl or Pamela Anderson!

I like this game a lot, since it gets them out of their seats and makes them talk to a large number of people, often those who they wouldn't normally approach in the first lesson. It also works well if you're practicing questions.

--Karen Jochimsen, Marburg/Germany (instructor at the adult ed. center)
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