Can riddles make learners improve their speaking,listening,reading and writing skills ?

Riddles are puzzling questions to be solved or answered by guessing,aren´t they ?

Then anyone who pays attention to a question will try to answer it expressing his ideas coherently so that a conversation may follow and develop for a long or a short time.Thus learners will try to speak the foreign language in a creative way.

Most riddles make us , listeners or learners, to imagine complex situations but they are, in fact , very simple questions which tease people´s brains in such a way that the answer is not given right away.Making an effort to get the right answer,the speaker has to use all the vocabulary he has acquired to answer the question correctly.Guessing the possible answer for the riddle will encourage the learner to make use of what he has already learned in the foreign language.

Reading the riddles several times may give the learners/readers more time to observe the spelling of the foreign words carefully.He may learn or review  the spelling of the words and he may also learn a lot of new vocabulary in an amusing context.Besides,he will need to listen better , several times , the same question which will give him the chance of learning the words' correct pronunciations.

Laughing at the riddles' answers makes learners feel not only more relaxed and amused but it also encourages them to remember the riddles and use them with other people showing how smart/fluent they are and how funny and useful it is to ask and answer questions accurately.

There are 10 riddles below. Read them carefully and then think about all the possible follow-up activities which can make learners improve their four skills.

You may find several riddles on line so whenever you need them,you can always update your"repertoire ".

Enjoy !

1) What goes up but never comes down ?

         Your age

 2) How many months have 28 days ?

           All 12 months.

3) Where can you always find happiness?

           In a dictionary.

4) What travels around the world but stays in one spot ?

           A stamp.

5) Which word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it ?

         Shorter.

6) What occurs once in a minute,twice in a moment and never in one thousand years ?

           The letter " m "

7) What´s the longest word in the dictionary ?

            Smiles because there is a mile between each " s "

8) Poor people have it.Rich people need it.If you eat it you die.What is it ?

           Nothing.

9) You have 10

    fish,5 drowned,3

    came back to life.

    How many fish do you have ?

                Stop counting smart one. Fish can´t drown !

10)What is so delicate that saying its name breaks it ?

                    Silence.