HeadBands: What Am I?

Headbands reviewing is really just an elaborate way of playing “What Am I?”, but it’s a heap of fun and great speaking practice for students learning English.

Click Here 103 Heads or Back Review Cards Download

I often see people mentioning that the most fun game they often play in their ESL classrooms is “Who Am I?" This involves sticking the names of famous people on students back, whilst they mingle around the classroom asking questions to find out their identity…BUT (and notice it’s a big but), any ESL teacher based in China knows that for them… this definitely is not going to work. Chinese student’s (and that includes adult students), have hardly any idea about world-famous personalities. Michael Jackson, President Obama and a couple of soccer stars (at a stretch) are not going to suffice in a class of up to 60 students, however headband or back reviewing nouns most certainly does work and is highly successful and fun.

I have mentioned about the hedbanz game in a previous post about the commercial boxed board games to use in your classroom, It's super quality and fun for everyone. People have been reviewing like this forever with just an everyday sweat band, or head band (or clipping cards to students backs).  It's such a hit with classes, here's some more info, instructions on similar games and some downloads of review cards that you can use in similar ways. 

30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

Reviewing in this way really is fantastic for the ELL and ESL classrooms. It’s great to start the class with a whole lot of example questions that they will be able to practice. Am I big? Can you eat me? Am I in this room? Am I alive? Can I move? Am I red? ...you get the idea. It's entirely up to you as to if you make your students stick to yes/no questions or make life easier and allow them to ask broader questions like What color am I? I prefer to stick to yes/no.

THE RULES : The basic game involves one person putting on a head band and choosing a card. The card is placed into their head band, and then they must ask questions to the other students to find out “what they are” before the allocated time limit is up. Simple and easy! With small groups this method is fine, as is the method of up to 6 students all wearing a card in their head bands at the same time and taking turns to ask questions…but what do you do with big classes?
Click Here 103 Heads and Back Review Cards Download 
Headband Reviewing in a Big Class?

When teaching 30- 60 students, this method works well.

• Make 6 groups of students (so a class of 60, would be groups of 10 students)


• Give each group 1 head band and let them rock, paper scissors to see who will go first for each group


• Make sure you stand in a central place for students to make their way over to you


• One person from each group (not the headband wearer) comes to you to get a picture card and then takes it back to their group and without showing the head band wearer (guesser) what the picture is, places it into the student's head band.


• This student must now start asking his group questions to find out what he is.


• Once the student guesses the answer, they must pass the head band to a new student and bring their card back to you.


• They of course pick up a new card to take back and put into the new students head band, and so it goes on.

Potential Problems You May Encounter

• It can be the case that the students find the cards so funny that they get too excited and give away the answers. You must keep a close eye and try to stop this from happening.


• The students are not supposed to give the guesser hints and should ONLY answer his questions, make sure they know this.


• It’s impossible to remember which groups have had which cards. There are actually plenty of cards, but it does happen sometimes that the student finds a card that their team has already guessed. The good thing is… they can remember the cards they have used and only need to tell you that they need a different card.

Back Review Mingle
The other way that works well with review cards is the Back Review Mingle. You will need a way to secure the cards to students backs such as clips or reward stickers.
Students mingle around class asking other students questions (again in yes/no answer format) to help them guess what they are (indicated by the card on their back).
I allow only 1 question allowed to be asked to each student, encouraging them to keep moving. You could also bring in a rule that if that student asks you a question you can't ask them in return. This can slow things up and make the lesson last longer and keep the students moving and thinking.
30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

The Final Verdict

A few decks of different categorized cards for Head-Band or Back Reviewing, in my opinion, is an absolute must have in your lesson assault pack. They won’t tire of playing these game, and it easily adapts to a large class.