A further exercise (maybe especially for children/beginners) — each student is to make up a new word. The made-up word must refer to something (real or imaginary) that does not have any specific name in the English language (or in whatever language is the working language of the group.
(Examples of possible new words:
“Flonk — that portion of the back of the human hand which does not contain any of the fingers”
“Wedlaw — a term for the kinship relation between two people whose former spouses have married each other”
“Spup — an imaginary creature with the head of a snake and the body of a puppy.”)
Each student then gets 30 to 60 seconds to teach the rest of the class his/her new word (and its meaning) without ever verbally defining the new word. (For example: you can draw a “spup” on the blackboard, you can outline/caress the “flonk” of one hand with the index-finger of your other hand, or you can state that two particular people in the group are “wedlaws.”)
After explaining the new word in this way, each student then asks the group /a/ to provide/state/draw examples of who/what would NOT be a “spup” (or a “wedlaw” or a “flonk” or whatever) and /b/ to state in each case “What indicates that this drawing is NOT of a spup?” (or “What shows that what you’re pointing to isn’t a flonk?” or “How do I know that my mother is NOT the wedlaw of any of her in-laws or other identifiable relatives?”
After each such “vocabulary lesson,” each student then gets 2 to 5 minutes to ask the rest of the class to define the word they have just learned. The “vocabulary teacher”-of-the-moment then grades each answer for accuracy and asks what could have been done to prevent error ŵithout ever actually giving a verbal definition of the word.
A further exercise (maybe especially for children/beginners) — each student is to make up a new word. The made-up word must refer to something (real or imaginary) that does not have any specific name in the English language (or in whatever language is the working language of the group. (Examples of possible new words: “Flonk — that portion of the back of the human hand which does not contain any of the fingers” “Wedlaw — a term for the kinship relation between two people whose former spouses have married each other” “Spup — an imaginary creature with the head of a snake and the body of a puppy.”) Each student then gets 30 to 60 seconds to teach the rest of the class his/her new word (and its meaning) without ever verbally defining the new word. (For example: you can draw a “spup” on the blackboard, you can outline/caress the “flonk” of one hand with the index-finger of your other hand, or you can state that two particular people in the group are “wedlaws.”) After explaining the new word in this way, each student then asks the group /a/ to provide/state/draw examples of who/what would NOT be a “spup” (or a “wedlaw” or a “flonk” or whatever) and /b/ to state in each case “What indicates that this drawing is NOT of a spup?” (or “What shows that what you’re pointing to isn’t a flonk?” or “How do I know that my mother is NOT the wedlaw of any of her in-laws or other identifiable relatives?” After each such “vocabulary lesson,” each student then gets 2 to 5 minutes to ask the rest of the class to define the word they have just learned. The “vocabulary teacher”-of-the-moment then grades each answer for accuracy and asks what could have been done to prevent error ŵithout ever actually giving a verbal definition of the word.
Huh, it’s like Zendo except in reverse—the goal is create a guessable pattern rather than an obscure one.
Goodness, I would so much rather play Reverse Zendo, too! I might actually take this idea and run with it! :)
Ewwww… if you have masters trying to make obscure patterns, then they’re doing Zendo wrong.
Patterns simply are obscure; there’s little helping it.