Intervention 3 was the first time students tried a guessing activity. In this lesson, students were paired up, one couple versus another, and tried to describe and guess a word (adapted from Klippel 1984). These words were easy to describe, such as ‘table’, ‘overhead projector’, ‘water’, ‘motorcycle’, and so on.
Intervention 4 was another guessing activity. In this lesson, each student had a name tag of a famous person fixed to their back. They then circulated around the room and tried to find out who they were by asking yes/no questions. When they found out which famous person they were, the teacher attached another name tag to their back (adapted from Ur 1981).
Intervention 5 comprised two activities including a jigsaw and a discussion activity. The discussion activity was presented in order to provide a discussion environment in which students can speak freely without relying on any task instruction. In the jigsaw activity, students worked in pairs: each pair received a different version of a picture and was asked to find out the differences through speech alone (adapted from Klippel 1984). In the discussion activity, students were divided into groups of five or six and discussed spending £500 to decorate their shared house and were expected to reach a consensus (adapted from Altay 2004).
Intervention 6 was designed to provide a more controlled classroom environment that was expected by some students. In this lesson, students were given a list of 20 occupations and asked to rank five of them according to two criteria: the ones that are highly regarded in society and the ones that they think are the most important (adapted from Klippel 1984). Occupations that students may not know were selected so that they could learn new words. After working in groups and making a list, each member of the group was asked to justify their list in front of the whole class.
In the seventh week, students were introduced to circumlocution as a communication strategy, because this seemed to be a strategy of which they were unaware. Students worked in pairs and defined words to their partners (adapted from Klippel1984). The second activity was a role-play and students were given different situations and asked to engage in dialogues with their partners (adapted from Klippel 1984).
The final intervention was a guessing activity in which students were divided into four groups of seven. A member of a team came to the front and picked up a card with the name of a famous person on it. Each member of the group asked questions to find out who the famous person was. After each member asked questions, the group negotiated and guessed the famous person. The group with the most points won the game (adapted from Klippel 1984).