Collection of games

Level: intermediate

Age: any (except younger children)

Group size: whole class

This game can be played with sounds, words, or sentences. It goes roughly as follows: the teacher says two sentences and the learners decide whether they are same or different. Examples:

Teacher: ‘We began to think.’ ‘We began to sink.’ Are they the same? I’ll say them once more…Peter?

Peter: ‘The second one was different.’

Teacher: Right. Listen again: ‘That’s a good road.’ ‘That’s a good road.’

John: ‘Different.’

Teacher: ‘Listen again.’ (Repeats them)

John: ‘The same.’

Teacher: Yes, now listen again. ‘I’d like to look at your bag.’ ‘I’d like to look at your back.’ Hands up.

And so on. Sometimes the sentences are given in pairs, sometimes in threes or fours, and often they will be identical, often different. The teacher should sometimes say ‘Listen again’ even when the answer is right.

It is essential that each sentence of a pair should be spoken in exactly the same way (e.g. with the same stress and intonation) apart from the one difference between them.
Which is which?