Taboo as a Definition Review Exercise

If you haven’t played Taboo before, it’s a word game where a chosen player has to describe a word so that other people can guess what it is. However, they are hampered by a list of 5 words commonly used to describe the word or phrase – they cannot use these words when trying to describe it to their teammates. For example, if the word is GROOM, the banned words might include: wedding, husband, bride, horse and clean.

This makes it ideal as a means of testing student knowledge of key terms and their definitions. You can make this a student-centred exercise by having them come up with the cards and banned words. Students will have to understand a concept well to describe it to their teammates without using common descriptors as chosen by the student group that created the card.

Procedure:

1.      Explain what Taboo is! (Might be worth bringing it in and playing a round or two).

2.      Divide your class into as many groups or pairs as you need. 

3.      Give each group a sealed envelope. Ham it up a little if you want – you can emblazon the envelope with things like ‘Mission #1’ and ‘Top Secret’.

4.      Tell them that in their envelope, they will find a word or a concept. They have to keep this secret from the other groups. In the envelope should be their word, printed on top of a blank sheet/piece of card (so there is space for their list of final taboo words). If there are many key terms for your current topic, just give your assigned groups multiple cards to create. 

5.      Give the groups 5-10 minutes to make a list of words that they would use to describe their concept. They should then select the best 5-7 (you can decide on how many descriptors you wish to make ‘taboo’).

6.      Have the students pass their Taboo card onto the next group. Each group will then attempt to convey the word to the rest of the class without using the taboo words. Obviously, groups should not partake in the guessing of their own terms! To avoid problems with this, you could label the back of each card e.g. Group 1, and when another group uses their card, Group 1 can sit out of the guessing process.

7.      Do put a time limit on the guessing – in the game Taboo, players usually have 1 minute but depending on your class and their abilities, you might want to increase this slightly.

If your class has done particularly well, it  might be worth hanging on to the cards to use as a model for other classes. You could even laminate them and use them in the future when you're particularly pressed for time.