Stop the Taxi

(TESOL Ideas--Time Killers and Time Fillers, Vocabulary)

            This is yet another idea which is NOT my own original invention.

           I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s very popular at our school, particularly with Young Learner classes.  In fact it’s such an old standard that when I first started teaching at my current school, the students were already very familiar with this game, and they taught it to me.

            This game can probably be best classified as a time killer—it works good as a way to give students a break, or reward at the end of class for their hard studying.  However, there is always the possibility that their might be some incidental learning going on—particularly when they are working in teams on this game, there is the possibility that they can learn vocab from each other.

            The teacher lists about 5-7 categories on the board.  I usually use: ANIMALS, COUNTRIES, JOBS, FOODS, THINGS, et cetera.  If I can do it easily, I might also try to sneak in whatever grammar point we have been working on during that class, for example: ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES, PAST TENSE VERBs, et cetera.

            The students are given a letter, and they have to think of something for each category starting with that number.  For example, with the letter A, they might have to think of

ANIMAL: alligator

COUNTRY: Australia

JOB: accountant

FOOD: apple

THING: air-conditioner

ADVERB: angrily

            The first team to come up with a complete set of words yells out: “Stop the Taxi!”  They then read out their list.  If they have a correct list, their team gets one point.  If they have an incorrect or incomplete list, I usually subtract a point.  (I’ve learned that it’s usually necessary to subtract points for incomplete or incorrect answers, otherwise some of my young learners will yell out “Stop the Taxi” as soon as the letter is announced in order to steal the opportunity from the other teams, and then they will try to think up stuff on the fly afterwards.)