In ELT Pelmanism refers to any activity that learners have to complete by memorising objects. Pelmanism can help learners who have a strong visual/spatial intelligence as the activity exploits physical objects.

Example
The teacher has a collection of countable and uncountable objects on a table. Learners memorise the objects, then the teacher removes some, unseen. The learners then have to identify which objects are missing.

In the classroom
Pelmanism can be used to focus on specific language points, such as the example with countables and uncountables, descriptive language such as colours and sizes, adjective order for higher levels, and functional language such as ‘I think there was...' and ‘Are you sure...?'