Blind Set-Ups
Peter Levrai and Averil Bolster, Macau
Peter Levrai has been working in EFL since 1995. He has worked in general, corporate and academic contexts. His particular area of interest is developing specialized courses for highly specific needs. E-mail: plevrai@umac.mo
Averil Bolster has been teaching English since the mid nineteen-nineties and has worked on a wide variety of EFL/ESL programs, including exam preparation, EAP and technical and engineering English. E-mail: abolster@umac.mo
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What is a ‘Blind Set-Up’?
Activity 1 - Newly Independent Country
Activity 2 – Biography
Activity 3 - Jam Packed Paragraph
A blind set-up is when students choose parameters of an activity or task without being aware of what they are choosing. This is a way of getting students interested at the beginning of an activity and also means that they can create problems for themselves that they then have to solve. It also means that every time you do the activity, the conditions of the activity will be different. Most importantly it means there is no right answer for anything – students can be as creative as they wish to deal with the situation they are facing.
Blind set ups can be used as lead-in to both oral and written tasks and some examples of how we have used them are shown below.
- The first step is to create a name – ask students to give you vowels or consonants until you build up something that looks like a name.
- Then ask the students to make a series of choices and write their answers on the board. At this stage they are just choose A, B or C without knowing what the choices mean.
| Choices | What they mean |
| A,B,C | Africa, Asia, South America |
| A,B,C | Coastal, Inland, Mountainous |
| 2-4 | Number of neighbours |
| Yes/No | Good relationship with neighbours |
| Yes/No | Natural Disasters |
| IF yes then A,B,C | Earthquake, flood, drought |
| Yes/No | Natural resources |
| IF yes then A,B,C | Petrochemical, mineral, agricultural |
| Yes/No | International Airport |
| A,B,C | Main source of power is nuclear, coal or gas |
| 5-20 | Population in millions |
| 15-30 | Percentage of the population under 25 |
| 15-30 | Percentage of the population over 55 |
| 5-20 | Percentage of the population unemployed |
| 5-25 | Percentage of the population university educated |
- After the students give you all their choices you tell them what those answers mean, writing on the board to build up a profile of the country.
- You then tell them that they are the government of the new country and the class elects a President and Vice-President.
- The remaining students are ministers for a different Government department (e.g. Education, Health, Defence, Transport, Environment, Work & Pensions, Culture)
- Students then prepare to debate why their department should receive the largest portion of the country’s budget. Their aim is to get the highest percentage of the total budget as they can. Encourage them to think of what the other departments will claim and how they can argue against these.
- In the cabinet meeting, the President controls the debate to make sure everyone talks and there is a chance for departments to ask each other questions and challenge their arguments.
- At the end of the cabinet meeting the President and Vice-President decide what percentage of the budget should go to each department, based on who had the most convincing arguments.
- After this you could have a more general discussion on how important each department really is and which department the members really think should have the highest budget.
The same blind set-up technique can be used to set up an autobiography role-play. Students either present their history to the group and the other members can ask questions or they work in pairs and interview and question each other.
The procedure is the same as before but the students make individual choices. They can note down their own answers on the blank sheet – then you tell them what the numbers/letters mean.
The choices you can give the students are:
| Choices | What They Mean |
| 1 | 55-80 | Age |
| 2 | Yes / No | Married Now |
| 3 | Yes / No | Divorced |
| 4 | If Yes then 1-3 | Number of times been married |
| 5 | Yes/No | Children |
| 6 | If Yes then 1-4 | Number of Children |
| 7 | Yes/No | University educated |
| 8 | Yes/No | Travelled Internationally |
| 9 | Yes/No | Own a property |
| 10 | Yes/No | Employed |
| 11 | Yes/No | Rich |
| 12 | Yes/No | Happy |
The members then have to come up with a story to explain what happened to them during their life i.e. how it is that they were married twice, have three children, have travelled internationally, are rich, but are not happy.
Blind set-ups can also be used for writing. Ask students to give examples of things (see the middle column below) and write these in a column in the centre of the board. Then ask them to name a type of film and write this to the left of the column. Then ask them to choose a number between 100 and 150 and another number between 1 and 5 and write this to the right of the column. Your whiteboard should then look something like this.
| Write a science fiction story including |
Woman’s name
Man’s name
Animal
Colour
Job
Place
Time of day
Season
Vegetable
Type of transport
|
Using 126 words, +/- 5 |
Students then work in small groups to include all of the items selected into a paragraph in the chosen genre of the chosen length.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching with Minimum Materials course at Pilgrims website.
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