uch your ear. [Tape the picture on the board, and record the results]
- Do you think this woman has bad taste? If you do, put your hand up, if you don’t, touch the floor. [Tape the picture on the board, record the results.]
- Where did you buy your shoes? If you bought them in a department store, touch your nose. If you bought them in a boutique, put your hands under your desk. [Record the results]
- Introduction of new material: recording results of the survey. Introduce frequency vocabulary and demonstrate it describing results using first two questions: “Most of the class thought . . .”; “Some of the class thought . . .” If the material seems easy for the students, quickly ask for summaries of the results of other questions. If the material seems difficult, give them five minutes to work with their neighbors, then ask.
- Group work: worksheets with six new survey questions related to personal shopping and fashion preferences. Break class up into groups of six so that each person is responsible for a question. Each student is responsible for asking all others in group his or her question and recording the results.
- Do you wear the current fashion?
- Do you dress like your friends?
- Should people over thirty dress differently than people under thirty?
- Do you like to wear dark colors?
- Do you prefer to shop in large shopping malls or small boutiques?
- When you meet someone new, is their taste in clothing important to you?
- Report back to class: warn students that they should listen closely because they will need to know the general results for a homework assignment. Have each student report the results for his or her question within the group of six.
- Homework: Explain to students that you want them to take the survey questions home to ask people in their family. They should then prepare five sentences comparing the preferences of their family with the preferences of the class. The next class will begin with a discussion of their results.
- Contingency plan: Relay race. Divide the class into three teams. Using three identical stacks of index cards, have each student run to the front of the class, take the top card, and write the answer to the question on the card on the board, then run back to tag next person in line. Questions will ask students to make a judgment based on looking at the rest of the class – “How many students are wearing black shoes? The latest fashion? White shirts?” Students have to write one of five answers on board: all, most, about half, some, none. The winning team is the one that completes all of the questions first without having an answer that disagrees with both other teams.
Materials: Lists of new vocabulary, pictures of models with different styles taken from local magazines and newspapers, worksheets with surveys, index cards with questions.
ESL/EFL books abound in activities and games and they can save you a lot of time and energy in thinking of ways to pass the hours. Be sure to think about the suitability of the activities for your particular country and group of students, not only for level but for cultural relevance.
Question and Answer Match-ups
This activity is similar to the cocktail party game of matching famous romantic pairs, where each person is given a famous personality and has to walk around and mingle with other guests until they find their pair (Juliet has to find Romeo, Mickey Mouse has to find Minnie Mouse). In the EFL classroom, however, the activity can be expanded to include entire question and typical response match-ups. Print several questions and typical responses on separate index cards, shuffle them, and distribute them. Students have to memorize what is printed on their card. Collect the cards, and allow the students to mingle around the room until they find their match.
Have the students report back to class, then have the two partners switch places (the old responder asks the question, the old questioner responds.) This activity can be adapted to suit many different lesson topics.
This activity is mentioned in a few older ESL/EFL texts, and works better 