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Telephone Keypad Messages - October 18, 2021
Lesson Collection #4 - Lesson 21
Everyone these days has a cell phone. Text messaging is as common as breathing. This lesson has a slightly different use of a mobile telephone, sending and decoding encrypted messages!
The sneaky bit behind this lesson is getting students to work with articles (a, an and the), ordinal numbers (first, second, third) and phrases of probability. All of these areas will help students eliminate wrong choices and eventually arrive at the intended message.
It's not as difficult as it first appears. The first encoded message on the worksheet is: 8447 47 2 726753 6377243. Each number represents the three or four corresponding alphabet letters on every cell phone. The numbers are words (separated with spaces).
Look at the first series of numbers: 8447. The number 8 stands for either a T, U or V. The first word in the message, therefore, must begin with one of those three letters.
The second number is 4, which stands for either a G, H or I. Since we know 8447 is a word, we are left with the following possible combinations: Th, Ti, Ug or Vi.
Moving on to the third number, also 4, the only possible first three corresponding letters, in English anyway, are: Thi, Tig or Vig.
The last number is 7 which stands for either a P, Q, R or S. Adding the final letter to the first three, the only possible word is This.
Now the second word appears 47. Since the first word has to be This, we have a hint that the second word might be a verb. By looking at the cellphone display, we see that the numbers 47 perfectly fit the verb is.
With a little team work, students will figure out through the process of elimination that the opening message: 8447 47 2 726753 6377243 translates to: This is a sample message.
Once students understand how this lesson works, they'll enjoy creating and solving their own telephone keypad messages.
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