This is a fun cultural activity that works best with older students with high intermediate to advanced levels of English. I first explained to students that we have various slang words and expressions that are particular to The South (I'm from Alabama.) I then showed them a list of examples without definitions on the whiteboard through the projector. They repeated after me the pronunciations. After that I explained that they were going to work in pairs to try to guess the definitions of two slang words/phrases of their choosing and then perform a short dialogue to demonstrate them in context. They were allowed to either perform two short dialogues—one for each word/phrase—or one longer dialogue that includes both words/phrases.
I then put the students in pairs and let each pair choose two words/phrases that they would like to work with. This was on a first-come, first-served basis. As each pair chose their words/phrases, I drew a line across them. Then I allowed the students time to try to guess the definitions and create their dialogues. During this time I walked around the classroom to ensure productivity and assist where needed. I allowed students to ask me for help figuring out the definitions; if they were completely lost on making a guess of the definition, I used the slang in an example sentence without explicitly saying the definition.
After about 10–15 minutes, I allowed pairs, in turn, to come to the front of class to state their definitions and perform their dialogues. At the end, I projected a slideshow where I showed each word/phrase followed by their definitions. This allowed students to see how close or far off they were from correctly guessing the definitions. Below is the slideshow, which also includes the initial list of slang for students to choose from:
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