English Corner Kit–Grammar & Vocabulary

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12 Mime Cards
For these games you need sets of 15 to 20 cards with situations, sentences, words or pictures which
students can mime (see pages 49 – 51).

Procedure for present continuous/past simple/’going to’

For this game you need a set of mime cards for each group.

1) First give a demonstration:

a) Take any card from one of the sets.
b) Tell the students you can only say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and that they have to guess what you are doing
(practice for present continuous) or what you did this morning (practice for past simple) or what
you are going to do this afternoon (practice for ‘going to’).
c) Mime the situation.
d) The first student to tell you, using the correct structure e.g. You are eating an apple, gets the
card.
2) Give each group a set of cards.
3) The students place the cards face-down on the table in a pile.
4) One student takes a card, looks at it and mimes the situation.
5) The first person to give the correct sentence gets the card.
6) Play moves on to the next student and continues in turn.
7) The student with the most cards when all the cards have been used up is the winner.

This can be made into a team game – one student from each group mimes to another group.

Procedure for adverbs

For this game you need a set of the mime cards as for the previous game and a set of adverbs of manner
on cards (see page 50) for each group.

Follow the procedure for the previous game except:

 There are two piles of cards face down and students have to take one from each pile and mime the
action in a certain way, e.g. eating an apple & angrily. The rest of the group has to guess both the
action and the adverb.
 The member of the group who gets it right can nominate one change (e.g. eating an apple noisily) which
the other person must then mime.

Hotel Reception Mime

For this game you need a set of mime cards for each group (see page 51)
1) Explain to the group that they are in England and they all work in a hotel and one of the guests in the
hotel has lost his voice and can’t speak. He has to mime and they have to try and work out what he is
saying.

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English Corner Kit–Grammar & Vocabulary
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2) Give a demonstration. Take one of the cards and mime the situation. You can only shake and nod your
head to give answers. Give the card to the person who guesses exactly what it is you are trying to say.
3) Give each group their set of cards. They place the cards face-down in the middle of the table.
4) Each student takes it in turns to take a card and mime the situation.
5) They give the card to the person who guesses the problem.
6) The winner is the person with the most cards.

Team Mime Games

You can divide the class into two teams and get the teams to race against each other through the cards.
The first group to finish is the winner.

Mime Circle Game

1) Get the group to stand up in a circle.
2) Mime an action and ask the students what you are doing, e.g. playing the piano.
3) Continue to mime playing the piano and tell the person on your right to read a newspaper.
4) The person on your right mimes reading a newspaper and tells the person on his right to do an action.
5) Students continue around in the circle telling the next person what to mime.

This can also be done as a guessing game with students miming an action and the rest of the circle
guessing what they are doing.

Do-it-yourself Mime games

Students write their own mime cards and try them out on other groups. Use the blank grid on page 52.

Mime Games Ideas

You could make cards with any of the following as a focus:

Grammar
adverbs
present Continuous
past tenses
‘going to’ for future intentions
complete sentences

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Mime cards - Present Continuous Tense

Playing computer games Swimming

Riding my bike Riding a horse

Playing the piano Talking on the telephone

Feeding my cat Taking off my shoes

Doing my homework Listening to some music

Reading a book Sunbathing

Watching T.V. Brushing my teeth

Having a shower Brushing my hair

Singing a song Getting dressed

Playing tennis Taking a photograph

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English Corner Kit–Grammar & Vocabulary
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Mime Cards - Adverbs of Manner

carefully quietly

noisily silently

sadly angrily

slowly happily

carelessly nervously

gently seriously

loudly tiredly

quickly easily

aggressively badly

gracefully coolly

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English Corner Kit–Grammar & Vocabulary
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Mime cards – Hotel Reception Mime

I can’t remember my room number.

There’s a spider in my bath.

I’ve lost my room key.

I can’t turn the T.V. off.

I dropped my ring down the toilet.

I can’t find the swimming pool.

I would like you to wake me up at 6am tomorrow.

I would like a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

There is no water in my bathroom.

I saw a mouse in my room.

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Mime cards – Template

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