Where In The World

Setup

You can do this activity by displaying the website OpenGuessr on a projector (or laptop for smaller groups), in which case spend a few minutes beforehand becoming familiar with the site. GeoGuessr is an ad-free alternative, but only gives you 3 free places each day.

Alternatively, for a longer activity, you can display photos that your students provide. In this case, ask them to send you a photo from a trip they took, for homework in the previous class. Importantly, these photos should not contain any recognisable landmarks (e.g., a beach is fine, but not the Eiffel Tower). Students should prepare to answer questions about the context of their photo. Prepare one of your own for modelling the activity too!

With 6 or more students, divide the class into groups of 3-4 students to facilitate more speaking opportunities.

Activity

1. Show the students a photo that was taken at an undisclosed location. Use the OpenGuessr website, or if students are contributing their own, use a photo of yourself to start.
2. Model a description of the photo, or ask the class a question about where they think it is. Elicit examples from students in the target language.
3. When students are comfortable with the concept, reveal the location by clicking on the map on OpenGuessr, or telling the students about the context of your photo.
4. Show a new photo from an undisclosed location.
5. Give the students 1-2 minutes to describe the place in the photo and discuss the possible location and context, using the target language. You can move the camera view around in OpenGuessr to provide more clues if the current view is too difficult.
6. If working in groups, ask the groups to share their conclusions, and optionally, take a vote on the location (you could keep track of correct answers as points if you want to make this a game).
7. Reveal the photo location by clicking on the map on OpenGuessr, or asking the student who provided the photo to tell the class when and where they took it.
8. If a student provided the photo, invite follow-up questions about the context of the photo.
9. Repeat steps 4 to 8 as many times as desired.

Target Language

You can use the Where In The World ESL activity to practise a variety of grammar topics. Speculating where a place might, could, or must be lends itself well to practising modal verbs of possibility. With some clear instructions to your students to talk about the past action of the photo being taken, or the past action of a student travelling somewhere, you could also use it to practise modal verbs of past possibility.

If you’re using photos that the students provide themselves, Where In The World is a nice way of practising the past simple, especially with students who are into travelling, or who come from a variety of places. In this case, give the students a little longer to write down a few sentences about the trip connected with the photo. For example, “We think that…she went to Brazil…she went to the beach…she drank a caipirinha.” You could even score the teams on how many are true.

Finally, you could also use this activity as part of a lesson on geography or travel. In this case, encourage students to use recently learned vocabulary words in their descriptions (e.g., cold, arid) and to discuss whether they would like to go there.

Where In The World works great as a warmer, so you could use it to introduce or review any of the above language topics at the start of class.

For another fun activity on the topic of travel, try The Travellers.