Working with students

Twenty questions

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to help students learn more about jobs. In this activity students ask each other questions to find out what they need to know.

Structure: whole-class activity
Duration: each round may last 5–10 minutes
Resources: none for the standard game. For the variations: sticky labels, access to the Career Services website or a copy of Jobs Galore

Instructions

This is played the same way as any game of Twenty Questions.

Start with one person thinking of a job.
The rest of the class asks questions that require a 'yes/no' answer, to help them guess the job.
The person who first guesses the job is the winner and thinks of a job for the next round.

Variations

Research

Have the class research a number of jobs beforehand, using the Career Services website, printouts of job information from the website or a recent copy of Jobs Galore. Let them refer to the printout while answering questions. You may want to prepare a list of jobs and allocate one to each student, or to some students.

Who am I?

Place a sticky label with a job written on it on each student's back. Don’t let them see it.
Students mingle with each other. They can ask anyone questions to help them work out what their job is. The questions can only have 'yes/no' answers.
This continues until everyone has worked out what their job is.
You may want to get students to sit down as soon as they have worked out their own job.