Thursday, August 21, 2014

EFL Spoken Grammar Activity: Practice Asking Questions

I wrote this Spoken Grammar Activity while I was in graduate school which seems like only yesterday and yet it was fifteen years ago.  Anyway, this is a very simple activity where the students practice using the WH questions and at the same time work on tense and also on their conversation skills.  The activity consists of a chart of all kinds of nouns with the question at the top:  Who/What/Where is/was your favorite...?  So, what the students do is choose a noun from the chart, for example, 'brand of shampoo' and then the student must form the question "What is your favorite brand of shampoo?"  Another example is "person", so the student can choose how they want to form the question:  "Who is your favorite person?"  or 'Who was your favorite person when you were younger?"  This activity can be used with any level because it can be adapted to focus on what the students need.  Some of the students will need practice forming the question and answering.  Some of the students will need practice developing fluency and the teacher can use this activity as a springboard to free discussion.  I have used this with groups where only one question was actually asked as we were able to use that as a way to get into a conversation everyone was interested in.  I have also used this with groups were just asking the question was the goal and so we went through the entire table.  This activity has been used successfully in the virtual classroom as well as in traditional classrooms with every level.

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