also at other points, to allow to find out more about one another. a. Filling grid dictation.
Give one copy of the grid below to each student. Give instructions for words or pictures to be put in each square. For example: Write the name of your favorite film in box 7; Draw your favorite food in Box 2;Write your favorite English word in Box 12; What is your dream? Draw it in box 6, what are you worried about at the moment? Put that in Box 9.etc.
You can vary the instructions depending on the age, experience, English level, etc of the class. Once they’ve got the idea encourage them to offer instructions, too. Go on until the grid is filled. b. comparison, discussion
In pairs (or small group) the students can now compare what they have put in the grid. Many small discussion topics can easily grow out of this. c. whole class
After sufficient time for a good conversation in the pairs or groups, you may want to draw together any particularly interesting ideas or comments with the whole class.
9) Picture compositions
In pairs, one student is given picture A, one picture B. without looking at the other picture they have to find the differences. 10) Pictures from magazines or newspapers
Get Ss to tell a simple story illustrated by a sequence of pictures, as in the example on the page. Ask for volunteers to repeat the whole story from memory. Then get the learners to write the story in pairs or groups. It may be divided into three paragraphs--- the beginning, the middle and the end of the story.
The whole class can brainstorm ideas on a topic. These can be written up on the board. Working in pairs or groups, Ss can the select the most relevant ideas and organize them into a sequence and then into sections and paragraphs. Guided Practice \
Language focus: adjectives describing feelings, actions
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Skills practiced: describing feelings Time: 20 minutes
Material: Pictures of faces or people expressing different feelings and moods. Instructions:
1. Teach or review adjectives describing moods and feelings: happy, sad, angry, upset, cheerful,
etc.
2. Hand out pictures and ask students to describe how the people feel, and why they feel that way.
What happened that made them feel this way?
3. As a follow up, students can present their descriptions to the group, and their classmates can
add additional information about the person in the picture. Example of student production: S1: This man is tired. Very tired.
S2: He's a businessman. He probably has a lot of work.
S3: He has a lot of stress. Maybe he has a problem at work. He looks worried. (Etc.)
Variation: You may want to use this activity to have students speculate, using modals like may, might/might have, must/must have, etc. Grammar \
Language focus: the second conditional
Material: Pictures that show locations or locale with or without people: landscapes, city streets, interiors of public buildings or houses, etc. Instructions:
1. Show students a picture of a location and have them brainstorm about the place: where it is,
what people normally do there. Also elicit vocabulary words related to the location. 2. Ask the students what they would do if they were there, how they would be feeling, etc. Example: (Picture of a smoky bar.)
T: What would you be doing if you were there right now?
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S2: I would be dancing.
S1: I would be talking to my friends. T: What would you order? S2: A beer.
T: If you were there right now, what would you hear? S5: We would hear music from the juke box. T: What song would you choose?
3. Students work in pairs or small groups. Students can just brainstorm, using the structure in affirmative, or they can take turns asking questions (with question words or yes-no questions). \
Language focus: modal verbs can, could, should Skills practiced: expressing ideas, negotiating
Material: Any. A set of 10 to 20 pictures or cutouts per group of three to six students. Instructions:
1. Have students work in groups of four. Give each group a set of pictures. Tell them to sort these
pictures out in three (3) logical categories. All categories should have a similar number of pictures. There are probably different options, so students need to work together in each group to find the best solution.
2. [After the activity:] Was it easy to do? Did you work together, or did one person find the
solution? Why?
Example of student production:
S1: I think these two should go here. They're all indoor activities. S2: Yes, but you can do them outdoors, too.
S3: What if we put all men together in one group, and the women in another? (etc.) Listening Comprehension \
Language focus: there is, there are; prepositions
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Skills practiced: listening comprehension Time: 15-20 minutes
Material: Pictures, or a photocopies of a picture where the items are spread over the page. The vocabulary should be known to the students. There should be one picture or copy for each pair of students. Also, a similar picture to do the example with. Instructions:
1. To do an example of the activity, tell the class that you have a picture which you will not show
to them, but you will describe it for them. The students should draw the picture. \picture to them. Do this slowly and repeat or rephrase sentences when necessary. Allow students to ask questions.
Example: This is a picture of a man in his office. In the middle of the picture, there is a man. He is sitting on a chair. To his left, there is a large desk. There is a computer on his desk, and there are many papers on the desk. Behind the man, there is a picture on the wall. (Etc.) 2. Divide the students up in pairs. Hand out a picture to each pair. One student will describe, the
other will listen and draw the picture. The listeners cannot look at the pictures! When students finish, they can compare the drawings with the original picture.
3. Students change roles: the person who just described will now draw, and vice versa. \
Language focus: past tenses and other structures depending on the level of the students Material: Pictures with unusual situations (e.g., a man balancing chairs on his arms, feet and head, a female executive tied and gagged in her office, a very muddy Mercedes parked in the business district of a city, etc.). Instructions:
1. Elicit question words and write them on the board: where, why, who, when, what, etc. 2. Tell the students to work in pairs or small groups and explain the picture, using the questions
words. Do one picture with the class as an example.
Example of questions: (I like to use picture of an archeologist standing between a group of Peruvian mummies.) Who is this man? What does he do? How do you know? What is he doing now? What does it say on the bags? What's in the bags?
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