Put the students in pairs (or groups of 3 or 4, depending on how many students you have). Tell students they’ll have a couple minutes to look at each picture and say what happened using first the past simple (to describe the picture) and then the reason (in the past perfect simple of continuous). Do a demo by showing students one of the pictures and eliciting possible responses. For example, for Picture 1 (of the car wreck), students could say things like:

He crashed his car because he had been speeding.

He got into an accident because he had never passed his driving test.

The accident happened because the driver hadn’t slept the night before and was exhausted.

There are many possibilities! The main thing to make sure students know is that they should say what happened in the picture in the simple past (He crashed his car/ Someone broke into their house/ The couple broke up/ He lost his job/ She slept on the couch/ etc.) and then give a reason for this by saying what had happened (or had been happening) before that, using the past perfect simple or continuous. (…because he had been drinking/…because they’d left the door unlocked/ …because they had fallen out of love/ …because he hadn’t been doing his work/ …because she had lost her keys and had to stay with her friend/ etc.) Again- there is no one answer- encourage students to be creative!

Have the students (in their pairs or groups) spend a couple minutes at each picture, trying to come up with the best explanation for what happened, and then rotate to the next picture when you give a pre-determined signal, like tapping on the board.

Activity Feedback:

When the students have been to each picture, ask them to return to their seats. Follow up by asking who had an interesting explanation for each picture and getting some responses.

April 29, 2019

Shannon Felt

Present Perfect: "Have You Ever...?" Scramble

April 29, 2019

Shannon Felt

Activity Focus:

Accuracy and Fluency (semi-controlled)

Activity Type:

Active game

Materials:

Chairs (enough for all students except one!)

Preparation:

Arrange the chairs in a circle. The chairs should be close together but not touching; there should be enough space for students to move around inside the circle easily

Activity Procedure:

Have all the students sit in chairs except for one (again- you’ll want only enough chairs for all but one student!) The student who is left without a chair stands in the middle of the circle. This student has to say something he or she has never done, e.g. I have never been to Europe. Any student who has done that thing has to stand up and find a new chair. In the scramble to find a new chair, the student who was standing up initially also tries to sit down in one of the chairs that becomes available. Whichever student is left without a chair at the end has to give the next prompt: I have never… and the game continues.

You can let the game go as long as you’d like.

What to Watch Out For

This is a physical activity and could get out of hand easily. Even with adults, it’s a good idea to give a friendly reminder before starting that the game is not a contact sport and students should not touch each other, push each other out of the way, etc.

It’s not uncommon for the person standing up to have trouble thinking of a I have never… prompt. You may want to let students brainstorm things they have never done (but think other people have done!) for a few minutes before starting to cut down on thinking time during the game.

Activity Adaptations:

Instead of having students say something they haven’t done, you could ask them to say things they have done. This makes it seem a bit more like they’re looking for classmates they have things in common with (though of course finding a chair will still be the main focus!)

This activity can easily be adapted to practice other tenses. Provide practice with the present simple by asking students to give prompts in the present simple:

I have a dog / I like basketball / I don’t like coffee / etc.

and then students who have the prompt in common have to get up and find a new chair.

April 29, 2019

Shannon Felt

Present Simple: Classmate Bingo

April 29, 2019

Shannon Felt

Focus:

Accuracy (more controlled)

Activity Type:

Mingle

Materials:

Bingo cards (use this one as is or adapt/ create your own)

Preparation:

Print or copy enough bingo cards so that each student has one

Activity Procedure:

Give each student a bingo card. You may want to review the rules of bingo to make sure students are clear on this. Elicit what a “bingo” is and clarify that students can get a bingo by marking five squares in a row across, down, or diagonally. Make sure they know that once they get five squares in a row, they need to yell, ‘Bingo!”

Tell students that the squares on the bingo cards contain prompts that they need to change into questions to ask their classmates. As a demo, write one of the prompts on the board and elicit how to make it into a question. For example, write drinks coffee in the morning on the board and elicit from students how to make it into a direct question to ask a classmate: Do you drink coffee in the morning? Make sure students know they’ll need to rephrase each question as a prompt to ask their classmates. Elicit the possible responses to the questions (for example, Yes, I do or No, I don’t.)

Tell students they’ll need to walk around the room, asking different classmates different questions. When they find a classmate who says “yes” to one of the questions, they should write that classmate’s name in the appropriate square. That counts as one square toward a bingo. You’ll probably want to set a limit on how many questions the students can ask each classmate. A three-question limit is a good rule. This means that if students get a “no” answer to the first three questions they ask a classmate, they have to move on and ask someone else. As soon as they get a “yes” answer (within the first three questions), they can write down the classmate’s name and then have to move on to talk to someone else. This will ensure that students keep mingling and don’t fill out their entire bingo card just by talking to one person.

As students mingle, monitor to make sure they are doing the activity correctly and to help them where needed. You can also write down errors you hear to save for a delayed error correction stage after the activity.

Once a student gets a bingo, you can decide whether to end the activity or have the students continue for another round.

Activity Feedback:

After the activity, follow up by congratulating the bingo winner(s). Then nominate individual students to share something they learned about a classmate.

You then conduct a delayed error correction stage using the sentences with errors you collected while the students were mingling. Write the sentences on the board and elicit corrections from the students.

Activity Adaptation:

This activity can easily be adapted to practice other verb tenses, like the past simple or present perfect. Write prompts in the desired tense in each square. For example, you could write prompts in the simple past, such as:

had a pet as a child / was afraid of the dark / grew up in a city

or in the present perfect, such as:

has been to more than 10 countries / has read all the Harry Potter books / has never seen the Star Wars films

etc.