I always carry a set of animal trump cards in my bag. They provide great language practice and the kids love using them, even at higher levels. With a group, you can play this game in a circle with each pair having a card. At the end, each pair guesses the animal before it is revealed (‘We think it is a lion’ or ‘We guess it is a gorilla’).

I have played this with 4-year-olds who couldn’t read a word, but did recognize and know numbers up to 15. I simply introduced the questions with pantomime and they knew where on the card to find the right number. It is actually an advantage if they can’t read yet, because on the cards are the categories written and when kids can read they often say ‘How speed is your animal?’ instead of ‘How fast is your animal?’

In the beginning students will need some help with guessing (e.g. making the animal sound), but later on they will recognize the cards by the values for the different categories much faster (as you can see in the video with Livia).

Students can also ask additional questions like: ‘What colour is the animal?’, ‘How many legs does it have?’ or ‘Can it swim/fly/climb?’. Another option is to have two teams and make it a little competition.