Secret Celebrity Interviews

For this activity, students are divided into groups of three: one to be the "secret celebrity" and two to be interviewers. The secret celebrity of each group must choose to play the role of a celebrity that he or she is familiar with. Only his or her fellow group members may know the celebrity choice. The two interviewers must prepare some questions to later interview the secret celebrity of another group. Each group's secret celebrity may help develop these interview questions, but in the meantime, he or she should think about and prepare a few notes of some important facts about the celebrity he or she is representing. This will help in the interview phase because he or she must answer questions in the way the celebrity may answer them in real life. Some parameters may be needed so that students create good interview questions. For example, I told them that they cannot directly ask for the secret celebrity's name. Furthermore, I instructed students on the question types that they must ask:

1. "Would you rather and why" question

2. Hypothetical (2nd conditional)

3. Personal facts (hobbies, favorite things, personality, etc.)

4. Opinion (world events, political topics, etc.)

5. Have you ever. . .?

6. Any question you'd like to ask

The secret celebrities do not know what questions they will be asked, but they must be prepared to improvise answers while playing the role of their celebrity (without telling who they are). Furthermore, they are urged to give substantive answers, not just a few words.

When I did this activity, as groups chose their celebrities, they told me quietly, and I wrote them down. Later on the board, I wrote down all of the celebrities names since the groups would later be guessing who they had interviewed. I also wrote down a few extra random celebrity names to make this part a little more challenging.

Once groups are prepared with their celebrity choices and interview questions, the secret celebrities are instructed to change groups to be interviewed. There are two interviewers: one to ask the questions and one to write the answers. After the interviews finish, the interviewers switch roles and the secret celebrities change groups again. Thus, there are two interviews in total.

At this point, secret celebrities return to their original groups, and each group analyzes their interview answers and determines which celebrities their interviewees represented. Moreover, each group prepares to report their interviews using reported speech; secret celebrities may help with preparing the reports, but only the two interviewers will do the speaking. The two groups who interviewed each secret celebrity report their interviews using this reported speech. For example, "we asked the secret celebrity. . . and he told us that. . . " Since there are two rounds of interviews, each secret celebrity has two interviews to be reported. After the two groups report their interviews for that particular secret celebrity, they guess who they think they had interviewed, then the secret celebrity tells them if they are right or wrong and reveals his or her identity. This process is repeated until every interview is reported and every celebrity's identity is revealed. It's important that instead of each group reporting their two interviews in turn, each celebrity should have his or her two interviews reported in turn, whichever two groups they may be from. That way, each celebrity's identity is revealed in turn, after both of his or her interviews are reported, and the two groups have the opportunity to guess at the same time.

This activity is great for speaking and reported speech practice. It works best with mid-intermediate to advanced students, but it may be adapted for lower level students as well. Furthermore, the activity itself may be adapted to fit the specific learning situation. The activity may take more than one class session to completely finish.