The Price is Right is a popular television game which can be adapted for the EFL classroom. It’s ideal for a class who are learning numbers and simple objects.

Preparation

Get some flashcards and on each one have an everyday object; on the reverse put the price in local currency. A good source for pictures/prices like this are local brochures and advertising papers sent out by many supermarkets.

You can optionally include a short description but you don’t want to give too much away (the description should come from the students themselves).

Note, as a separate activity you can always get your students to prepare these flashcards!

Running the Activity

Introduce the game by showing a random card to the class. Elicit from them what it is, and go into as much detail as you can about the object.

For example, if the card shows a television set you can elicit from the class some detail. For a class of children you can keep this basic, e.g. colour television. For a teenage class who might be more knowledgeable about these things it could be Curved 105 inch colour television, high definition. Of course is this were a class of technicians who work for Samsung they’d probably tell you it was a Samsung UN105S9 Curved 105-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV!

The here idea is to get as much information out of your class as you can.

Once you’ve done this, ask the class to give you a price for the object. Go around each student and get a price from everyone.

Once you have this turn the card over and reveal the price. In the case of the television shown here, it was $120,000 USD. The student who is the closest “wins” the object.

When the class have understood the the basic principle you can start to play a little more with the game and involve the whole class more. For example, whoever won the previous prize has to come up an “sell” the next object, extolling the virtues and persuading the students that it is the greatest thing in the world.

Alternatively you can have the class work in small teams; once you have explained the object encourage them to get together to work out a reasonable price for it.