Name Them

Students work in pairs with a picture showing many people. They take turns naming characters by describing them to their partner, who must identify and label the same character.

Procedure

1. Brainstorm English names (masculine and feminine) with students and write them on the board. Add more until you have about 30 listed.
2. Give each student a copy of a picture showing many different people (a crowd scene, group illustration, etc.). Discuss briefly what they can see.
3. Explain the procedure: working in pairs, students may only look at and write on their own copy.
4. Student A writes a name on one character, then describes who it is and what the name is (e.g., The little girl with black hair and glasses at the front — her name is Eva). Student B asks questions to confirm the right character, then writes the name on their own copy.
5. Students switch roles. Student B names and describes a different character for Student A.
6. Continue for about ten minutes or until students have had enough.
7. Stop and have partners compare pictures to check they have the same names on the same characters.

Tips

• Use any picture with many people: crowd scenes, group photos, classroom illustrations, etc. The teacher sources the picture.
• With less proficient monolingual classes, allow names from students' own culture.
• To increase the challenge, ask students to assign an occupation to each character instead of a name.
• Also works well with pictures of superheroes, monsters, or dinosaurs — with suitably creative names.
• A useful way of familiarizing classes with common English first names.