Do you remember the game, Guess Who? It’s a really fun game where each person is given a lot of named faces. They each pick one face to think of and then take turns asking yes/no questions about the other person’s chosen face. After awhile of narrowing the potential faces down, one player will finally figure out who the other player has chosen and ask, “Is it *name*?”. If they are correct, they win that round.
I love using this game as a way for students to practice describing people – and it’s easy enough to google Guess Who faces, print out some copies, and give them to the students to look at as they play. But, as always, I am not satisfied playing only one way. So here are some game modifications you can do the next time you want to take out your Guess Who board/print out.
Teacher vs the Class
Sometimes I don’t want the hassle of putting everyone in a group. Or maybe I just don’t have the time and need a faster way to play the game. In those instances, I like to give everyone the Guess Who sheets and then tell them they are going against me. If I can guess what face they’ve chosen, I win something and/or the class gets a light “punishment”. If they win, they earn some type of reward. This works best in small classes where everyone can get a turn asking a question before someone figures it out. You can also make it a rule that everyone must have a turn answering/asking a question before we are allowed to guess.
If you want to make the students compete against each other, play it one sided. They don’t get to pick a face, they only have to guess which face you picked. The winner gets points and/or some other kind of reward.
Speak Metaphorically
You may have a more advanced class learning about how to use more abstract language. Or maybe you want them to practice their comparisons. Having them change their questions to include similes and metaphors is great for this. Instead of asking, “Is he thin?” have them ask, “Is he a stick of a man?”. Or instead of, “Does he have red hair?” ask, “Is his hair as red as a rose?”
Since this way of playing is very difficult (even for native speakers). I suggest writing plenty of examples on the board. Then, give your students a couple minutes to write their own questions in their notebooks – be sure to walk around and see what interesting comparisons they come up with. Finally, when it seems everyone has a solid foundation, group them up and let them play.
Drawing Time!
Another way to use your Guess Who is to have them draw. One student in the team picks a person from the Guess Who faces and describes them to another student. That student will attempt to draw the face just from listening to the description. Both students cannot see each other’s paper, so when time is up and the drawing/Guess Who face is revealed – both will be surprised by how accurate or inaccurate the drawing is.
If you have more time, let the pairs then group up with other pairs and look at each other’s art. See how fast it takes them to guess which face has been drawn.
Subjective Guess Who
I’ve seen this on Tiktok with native speakers and it is hilarious but has the potential to be very insulting – so tread lightly. Subjective Guess Who is all about making assumptions based on the faces. For example, you may ask, “Does this person look like they eat Mcdonald’s for breakfast?” or more simply, “Do they look friendly?”.
This is truly meant not only for the more advanced students, but also for the more mature ones. Honestly, I would save this for an adults class that gets along really well together. Playing this with teenagers may be fun, but they are very likely to voice some terrible stereotypes. If you are okay with that, then enjoy! If you don’t want to hear those kinds of things in your classroom, maybe do a different activity.
Coloring Time!
This version is very specific to the Guess Who worksheet I created:
I drew eight people but didn’t color them in. Print out enough worksheets for all the students and then one for yourself. Color yours in before class. After handing out the pages to your students, tell them to color their pages in according to your descriptions. You can make it easy, “Jordan’s T-shirt is yellow”. Or you can make it more challenging, “The person with curly hair is wearing a black and yellow striped T-shirt.”
This is a listening exercise. If you want the students to speak more you can have them ask questions about characters instead of directly telling them what to color. Or you can put them in groups and have them take turns telling the others what colors each person should be wearing. This is a great time to practice talking about shirt patterns/styles such as floral, tie-dye, or plaid.
My Downloads
If you like these ideas you can always buy the original Hasbro game, or you can use Google to find many other versions free to download, print out, and play. Just for fun, I’ve created some of my own Guess Who sheets.
This first Guess Who sheet I drew was a lot of fun, because it features a lot of characters I’ve created in the past. I also like how diverse they are. However, I had a thought that a diverse group of faces meant the game would be over too easily. With that in mind I decided to draw a Guess Who sheet featuring one character with some small variations. Honestly, they look like multiverse variants all lined up together. It was fun to draw though.
Finally, I have the colored version from the 5th activity. This is for if you want to play guess who using descriptions for clothes instead of faces.
Enjoy!