A bit early I know, but here is the perfect Xmas present for all your TEFLer friends, inspired by Onestopenglish.com’s official Top Trumps card game for learning English. The cards in this version represent famous TEFLers like Mario Rinvolucri, Scott Thornbury, Michael Lewis, Alan Maley, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Catherine Walter and Michael Swan, and contain numbers which represent:

– Height

– Weight

– Other vital statistics

– Fighting ability

– Looks

– Cost of a typical outfit

– Average size of conference audiences

– Number of Twitter followers

– Number of groupies

– Number of other famous TEFLers they have slept with

– Typical amount of alcohol at conference drinkies

– Score on the karaoke machine at IATEFL drinkies

– Number of other famous TEFLers who are no longer speaking to them

– Number of references in Cambridge Delta essays last year

– How often they are quoted by people who don’t really understand what they are saying

– Chance of basing your whole career on their teaching ideas

– Number of original teaching ideas

– Number of batshit crazy teaching ideas

– Amount of money for old rope

The rules are as per the original Top Trumps games, being something like Pokemon. The person whose turn it is chooses a statistic from their top card that they think is good and reads it out, e.g. “Fighting ability: 9/10”. Their partner then reads out the same stat from their own card, e.g. “Fighting ability: 10/10. Ha, I win!” They can then marvel at the results, e.g. “Wow, Michael Swan could have Michael Lewis in a scrap – whoever would’ve thought??” and continue in the same vein until one person has all the cards.

Any ideas for other categories, famous TEFLers to include, or scores for those above?