To play this game you must first locate, and clip out, the personal ads from an English newspaper. I always paste the ads on a piece of 81/2 X 11 constuction paper and then make copies for the class. Make sure the students understand that the personals are listed by Men Seeking Women and Women Seeking Men. Everytime I have used these exercises, my students have had a lot of fun. I'm sure your's will, too. You may use these exercises as they are written or modify them according to the needs of your class.
Exercise 1. Using the personal ads provided, work with a partner and select an ad under the heading Women Seeking Men and see if you can find a match under the heading of Men Seeking Women. You must be able to explain to the class why you believe the two people in the ads are compatible matches. Some questions to ask yourself as you compare the ads are; What traits do the man and woman have in common? What activities do they both like? Are they both looking for a long term romantic relationship, or do they want a casual friendship? You must use full, grammatically correct sentences when explaining your choices to the class, so it may help to make some notes to yourself while you are looking for matches.
Exercise 2. There are many words and terms in the personal ads that have meanings that are different than what the words may normally mean. For example: A California Goddess is not a female god from California, but rather, the words suggest that the woman who wrote the ad believes she is a woman of extraordinary class, who is from California. There are many other examples in the ads. With your partner, make a list of ten such expressions and discuss their meanings in context to the ads where they occur. Once you have agreed on meanings for your list of expressions, write the meanings on your paper and be prepared to discuss them in class.
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