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Guessing Games For Third Person S

Fun practice for one of the most common mistakes in English, including ideas
useable with levels from False Beginner.

Written by Alex Case for EnglishClub

Third person S (go/goes, do/does, feel/feels, etc) is by far the most difficult part
of using the Present Simple tense, making the tense not as easy as its name
might suggest. In fact, My brother like and Everyone know are common
mistakes in the speaking and writing of even quite Advanced students. Some
people believe that there is no point spending much time on a piece of grammar
that is naturally late acquired in both native and non-native speakers and has
little communicative function, but students are rarely satisfied with this
especially given the number of language learners for whom it is never acquired
rather than late acquired! The games below are designed to contain enough fun
and other useful language to make everyone happy.

1. Guess Who
Give students a set of true Present Simple sentences with the person removed,
e.g. __________ lives in my garage. These could be personal sentences like that
example, or factual ones based on cultural differences or trivia like __________
eat 2.1 billion tons of seafood a year. Students should use the grammar clues
(whether the verb has an S or not) to try to guess the missing subject (e.g. A
street cat and People in my country in the sentences above), giving clues
when they get stuck. They can then write similar sentences to test each other,
perhaps after some research on the internet.

2. Guess The Action

In this variation of the game above it is the verb which is blanked out, e.g. My
mother _____________ snails. Students should guess the correct verb, making
sure they also put in or leave out the third person S as appropriate, e.g. hates,
eats or poisons in the example.

3. Guess What
Give students a list of things that different people do different things with, e.g.
paper (make aeroplanes, do origami, use in the kitchen, recycle, etc) and water
(drink, take a shower, put into your car, etc). One student makes statements
about who does what with the thing they have chosen (e.g. My brother puts his

chewing gum in it to chew again later for paper) until their partner guesses
what they are talking about.

4. Personalised Sentence Completion

Give students a list of people they could say something about, e.g. My parents
and My oldest friend. As in these examples, make sure both singular and plural
forms are included. They should write true Present Simple sentences about at
least half of the people. They then take turns reading out the part they have
written, asking their partners to guess who they are writing about.

5. Guess Who 2
More confident students can play a similar game without any initial writing stage.
They choose a person or group of people from the list and make Present Simple
sentences about them like He lives in a huge house and He is busy at the
weekend until their partner guesses who they are speaking about (in this case,
my favourite sportsman).

6. Personal And General

A variation on the game above is to make the prompts a mix of general ones
(e.g. Women and Brothers) and personal ones (e.g. My wife and My
brothers). After guessing who is being spoken about, they can discuss whether
they think the general statement is true or if their own experience is different.

7. Guess How Many

Give students a list of unusual Present Simple sentences that are probably only
true for one or two people they know, if anyone, such as know/knows someone
famous and live/lives above the 20th floor. They should pick one of the
sentences and think about how many people they know who that is true for. They
partner will then try to guess that number with sentences like No one you know
lives above the 20th floor and Two people you know live above the 20th floor.
They can then move onto being given a number of people and trying to make
their own true sentences about that many people that their partner knows,
e.g.Only one person you know lives with a great grandparent for One person.

8. Guess How Many 2

This is a variation of the activity above. Before or after a class survey, students
guess how many people in the class the given Present Simple sentences are true
for, giving their answers as full sentences such as Only one person eats pasta
every day. Most of the statements should be designed so that they are probably
true for between zero and three people. They can then move onto being given a
number of people and trying to make their own true sentences about that many
people in the class.

9. Guess When
One student picks a time and gives true sentences about what they, people they
know and people generally do at that time (e.g. My brother gets home from
clubbing and Many people leave for work) until their partner guesses what
time they are speaking about.

10. Him, Him, Both

Bring in photos of two people who you know quite a lot about and you think are
quite similar, e.g. two actors, your father and grandfather, or twins. Show all the
students the two photos, e.g. by putting blown up pictures on the board. Ask
students to make statements about what they think may be similar and different
about those two people with sentences like He is more popular with girls and
They both like sport. Any sentence which you dont know to be false gets a
point. If they get stuck you can give them clues or even a whole sentence with
the subject missing, e.g. _______ is/ are married to a foreign woman/ foreign
women.

Written by Alex Case for EnglishClub | July 2011

There are links to more than 400 articles and 1000 worksheets plus 1500 blog
posts by Alex Case on TEFLtastic blog.

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