In this lesson your students will learn a simple but astonishing mind reading trick.

Do spend time learning the trick yourself. Being able to perform it will have a much greater impact on your class group rather than simply showing them a video demonstration. Once you are familiar with the inner workings of the trick, you will be able to troubleshoot issues or inconsistencies your learners may have while they practise and learn the routine.

Start the lesson with a demonstration. This is probably best performed while sat at a table with your learners stood around watching. Perform the trick before explaining how it’s done. There really needs to be a pause and period of enquiry prior to revealing its secret.

Introduction:

Ask your learner group to gather around a table while you demonstrate the trick.

Steps:

• Place a deck of cards in the centre of the table.
• Ask an audience member to shuffle the cards.
• Ask the audience member to return the cards to you.
• Invite the same person to remove one card, look at it and show everyone else. You should not see the card.
• At this point you should look at and remember the bottom card from the deck- a key card.
• Square the deck and put it in the middle of the table.
• Ask the audience member to place their chosen card on top of the deck.
• Ask them to cut the deck and place the top half off the pack on the table next to the bottom half of the pack. There are now two piles of cards.
• Ask the audience member to take the bottom half of the pack and place it on the top half. The deck is now complete.
• The key card you remembered will now be on top of the audience member’s chosen card.
• Ask the audience member to square the deck.
• Pick up the cards, turn them over (face up) and spreads them out across the table making sure they remain in the same order.
• You should look for the remembered key card. The audience member’s chosen card will be the next card to the right.
• Ask the audience member to wave their hand flat over the cards. Place your hand a few centimetres above the audience member’s hand.
• Tell the audience that the hand will tell you which card it is. You should be silent and focused on the audience member’s hand.
• Allow the audience member to wave their hand over the cards a few times before abruptly saying, ‘stop!, I’ve found your card!’.
• Ask the audience member to withdraw their hand while you scrutinise a specific area in the deck.
• With some hesitation, pick out the audience member’s chosen card.
• Hold the card up and ask if this was their card.

This is broadly described as an act of mentalism and can be performed in many different ways. As long as the magician, or mentalist, knows the chosen card, they can go to great lengths to find out what the card actually is. This could include supposing they can read the audience member’s mind, or that they are attuned to reading body language (as in the given example above), or even as a telepathic act.

Task:

Magic is magic for a reason. Remind your learners not to reveal the secret.

• Place your learners into pairs/groups of 3 and ask them to practise the trick using the task language and steps as a guide.
• If you don’t have enough decks of cards for each student, split each deck three ways, giving students 17 or 18 cards each.
• Learners should practise the trick as described above i.e., glimpsing the bottom key card, and then looking for it after it has been placed back in the deck. The chosen card will be to the right of the key card.
• Monitor and assist when necessary.
• Invite learners to mingle in their pairs and perform the trick 3-4 times.
• Bring the learners back to the table and demonstrate how the trick could be adapted. Instead of having the audience member wave their hand, the magician could stare into their eyes and read their eye movement, or even close their eyes and place their hands on their own temples in order to read their mind, etc.
• Ask learners to go back into pairs/threes and adapt the mind reading trick so it’s unique. This may include feeling the vibrations through the table or listening to the cards, etc. As this is a group effort (pairs/threes), the trick should be a routine that includes all members during the performance.
• Invite learners to perform their trick for the class.
• While the magician performs an act of mentalism, the audience should assess the performance using the success criteria.
• Invite feedback.

Here is a video demonstration:

Download a PDF of the Task language and steps and the Success criteria here: Lesson. The key card magic trick

Task language and steps

• Sit behind a table.
• Place a deck of cards in the centre of the table.
• Invite an audience member to help you.
• Say, ‘can you help me?’.
• Say, ‘please shuffle the cards’.
• Say, ‘please take one card and look at it’.
• Ask, ‘can I have the cards, please?’.
• Take the cards and shuffle them.
• Remember the bottom card- the key card.
• Square the deck and place it in the middle of the table.
• Say, ‘please put your card on the top’.
• Say, ‘now cut the deck’.
• Say, ‘now put this half on top’.
• Say, ‘please square the deck’.
• Turn the cards over and spread them out.
• Look for your remembered card. The chosen card will be to the right of the key card.
• Say, ‘please wave your hand over the cards’.
• Wave your hand over their hand.
• Say, ‘your hand will magically tell me your card’.
• Say, ‘stop! I’ve found your card!’.
• Take their card and hold it up.
• Ask, ‘is this your card?’.
• Say, ‘thank you for watching’.

Success criteria

• Did the magician perform the trick well?
• Did the magician speak to the audience member? E.g., did they say, ‘please shuffle the cards’.
• Give the magician some feedback and advice.

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Before finishing the lesson, try and make time for a review stage. If your students have followed the task language and success criteria, there will be plenty of scope for reflection.

Also, when I have run this lesson, I ask my students to perform the trick in English for their family as a homework task. A nice compliment to the lesson and gives a real-world use to some of the language.

Do you need a game to fill a gap in your lesson and engage your students? If yes, look no further than here: Games and board games