Illustration by Georgia Stylou
Ho, Ho, No!
It’s the holidays again, a time when EFL teachers go scrambling for holiday flavored gift ideas. Well, in the spirit of the season of giving, here’s an emotional intelligence laced speaking task that will also appeal to students with visual and kinesthetic learning styles.
Cracked Gift Exchange: Garbage Gifts
AIMS: Expressing gratitude, adjectives, modals (ex: can, could)
LEVEL: Elementary – Advanced
TIME: 15 minutes
MATERIALS / PREPARATION: Paper
AIM: Vocabulary for character traits
LEVEL: Intermediate and above
TIME: 45 minutes
MATERIALS:
Photos of people (emphasis on facial features/ langauge), Dictionaries
PREPARATION:
Photo Sources: Photos may be cut from old magazines or found on the internet. Search Google.com. Type in ‘faces’ and click on images. You will find many to choose from. If a coursebook is used, leaf through it and note down the page numbers with some photos to refer to. Try to find a good range of photos to work with depicting varying facial expressions. Using celebrities will help build interest, but try to use non-celebrities, as well.
AIM: Question forming, Brainstorming, Narrative Work
LEVEL: Intermediate – Advanced
TIME: 10-15 minutes
MATERIALS / PREPARATION: None
PROCEDURE:
– Tell the students that you have a story in mind and that they are to guess the storyline by asking yes / no questions. Give them a general theme for the story such by telling them its a “love story” or a “crime”, etc. You can also give them some brief details about the characters if you like.
– Tell the students to keep notes about your answers so that they can keep track of the details and piece the story together.
– Instruct the students they you will only answer “properly formed questions”.
– You do not need to have a story in mind at all! Simply answer ‘yes’ to every third question and ‘no’ to the others. When answering questions, give the impression that careful thought has been put into each response!
– After answering a number of questions (at least 20) put the students into pairs and have them write the story they believe you have thought of.
– Encourage students to be creative, if they claim they don’t have the details.
– Have each group read their story to the class – before you tell them the truth!
ELTvisa 