My favorite Lesson in my Bag of Tricks

 

I keep this lesson handy at all times. You can always find one, photocopied and ready to go on a shelf in my office. Yes, warning it is not paperless, but it is fun, interactive and a great way to motivate any class that needs a little jump start or final push.   

Most of you have probably heard of this lesson or something similar to it, you might have a different name for it, and the great thing is I will give you the bare bones and you can adapt it to your liking. I myself adapted it from an ESL textbook I use (American Headway 2  by: John and Liz Soars).  I use it for my university students, but I think it would work great with middle school and up. I would rate it at a beginner to intermediate level, but that can be adjusted. I of course call it what its function is, Exchanging Information.  

It’s very simple; you take a short biography of someone, or a small newspaper article. Go through the article and find all the Wh-questions you can. Remove the answers to the Wh-questions from the article, but include what Wh-question they should use.

This is a partner activity so you should mirror the two articles, each person will have half the information. I like to create it so they are going back and forth.  

Ex: (this is extremely short)

 Laura moved to Korea eight years ago. She teaches at Gyeongin National University of Education. She is 33 years old. She lives in Bupyeong.

Student #1 paper

Laura moved to Korea ___________(when?). She teaches at Gyeongin National University of Education. She is __________(how?) old. She lives in Bupyeong.

Student #2 paper

Laura moved to Korea eight years ago. She teaches at ________________________________(where?). She is 33 years old. She lives in ________________(where?).

The learning objective of this lesson is to allow students to practice their Wh-questions. It’s a great conversation activity and confidence builder. As a teacher it’s your responsibility to monitor your student’s grammar during this activity.

My students love this lesson, and are very active during the process. I usually pull it out when they have they glazed over look in their eyes and we have 20 min left to our 2 hr class, or those 9:00 am classes that need a good wake up activity to get things going.