Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 4; July 02

Activities from MIND MATTERS

Alan Maley and Francoise Grellet, Cambridge 1981

Alan and Francoise were, I think, the first to bring out a book of exercises for EFL students to invite them into logical mathematical thinking. In 1982 Challenge to Think, Berer, Frank and Rinvolucri, came out with Oxford and I remember thinking at the time that MIND MATTERS was the fuller and more interesting of the two books. The market, though, did not like it and it went out of print fairly fast. The market is often an ass.

Here are some exercises from the book:

1.1 Tricks with numbers

Pair the students and give the written instructions that follow to one person in each pair.

Ask your partner to think of a number Then ask them to:

multiply it by 5
add six
multiply the result by 4
add 9
multiply the result by 5

Without speaking to your partner, subtract 165 from the result and take off two zeros at the end of the number you get. You should now have their original number.

1.2 Pair the students and give the written instructions that follow to one person in each pair: Ask your partner to these sums:

multiply their age by 2
add 5
multiply the result by 50
add the age of their father
subtract the number of days in a year

Now ask your partner for their result.
Add 115 to the number you are given. The first two numbers will represent your classmate's age and the last two their father's age.

These two exercises demand accurate listening comprehension and are like a form of TPR in that the immediate result of the listening is to have to carry out an action, albeit, in this case mathematical rather than somatic.

It is sad that these brilliant activities have been away from staffroom tables for the past 15 to 10 years.

2.2 Tricks with Objects : Heads or Tails?

Pair the students and give the instructions below to one person in each pair. Tell this person not to show the instructions to anyone else.

For home work the instruction holders are to try the trick out on an innocent person in their family

In the next class ask the instruction holders to find their partners and to do the trick with them:

Place some coins, as many as you like, on a table. Turn your back and ask your partner to turn over one coin at a time, saying TURN whenever they do so.
They can do it as often as they want and turn over the same coin several times.
They then cover one coin with their hand. You turn round and tell them if the covered coin is heads or tails.

How to do it: Before you turn your back count the number of heads showing. Add one to the number each time your partner says TURN . If the total is even ( 2-4-6 etc) the number of heads will be even, including the covered coin.
If the total is odd ( 1-3-5-7etc) the number of heads will be odd.
By looking at the other coins, you can easily tell if the covered one is heads or tails.

This is a hard and detailed reading comprehension activity. As the activity is complex it is useful for the students to try it out at home first.

Riddles 5.1

a) What has four legs and back but cannot walk or move on its own?
b) What touches you all the time without being seen?
c) What can smile and move and laugh all the time without being alive?
d) What has a mouth bigger than its head?
e) What is always coming but never arrives?
f) What can't you say without breaking it?
g) Why is an empty room like a room full of married people?
h) What has four legs and flies?

Solutions: a) a chair b) air c) your reflection in a mirror d) a river e) tomorrow f) silence g) not a single person there h) a dead horse

5.2 Four errors

There is four errers in this centence? Can you find them?

Solution: two spelling mistakes, one grammar mistake and the fact that there no more mistakes!

Brain Teasers

7.9 The ferryboat from Dingle to Dangle takes five minutes to cross when the tide is coming in and 15 minutes when the tide is going out.
How long does it take when no tide is running?

7.14 The gangsters have captured a rival. They intend to kill him but in order to make it more interesting , their leader says to him:
"Make any statement you like. If it's true you'll be hanged. If it's false, you'll be shot."
What does the man say that saves his life?

A clue: the prisoner must find something which is true if it false, and false if it is true.

7.18 Is it possible to cut a round cake into eight equal pieces with just three cuts?

7.39 The island of Grant is uninhabited except for the shepherd Bleat and his flock of sheep. This summer, some campers land on the western end of the island. They were rather careless and one day fire broke out. The wind was blowing from the West and a wall of flames advanced rapidly across the island towards the Eastern cliffs near which Bleat was grazing his sheep.
How did the shepherd save his sheep from burning or from jumping over the cliff to their death?

Answers

7.9 7 ½ minutes, other things being equal. But how about wind strength, wind direction, currents etc….?

7.14 He says: " I will be shot". If this is true then he will be hanged, but he cannot be hanged because he cannot then be shot, and it would not then be true, and he could not therefore be hanged.

7.18 The first cut is vertical along a diameter of the cake.
The second cut is also vertical and along a the diameter but at a right angles to the first cut.
The third cut is horizontal, dividing the cake into an upper and lower half.

7.39 He drove the sheep towards the fire and then set light to the area downwind or East of them. So when the