Tag: collaborative speaking tasks

Posted in Conversation Classes

Plan a Magical Christmas

Posted on by Tim Warre

Image result for christmas markets berlin

Image credit: Party Earth

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is another Christmas themed lesson plan for intermediate (B1+) teenagers and adults. Students will be required to use smartphones, tablets or laptops as part of the activity. Download the lesson plan below:

plan-a-magical-christmas

Warmer

Tell your partner about your most memorable Christmas ever.

Report back in open class.

Planning the perfect Christmas

Put students in pairs or groups of 3. Write a range of amounts of money on small pieces of paper, for example: €100, €1000, €10,000, €100,000. Put the pieces of paper in a hat, each team picks a piece of paper.

The amount of money that they have picked is their budget for the magical Christmas they are going to plan. They should plan a week of activities, from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. Students can use the internet to research what they are going to do with their money: book flights to or a hotel in an exotic destination, book tables in fancy restaurants, organise interesting activities etc. The only rule is that they can’t go over budget AND they must speak in English the whole time, project the language for making and responding to suggestions below onto the board.

To be nice to the group that drew the €100 you could let them come up with a money making scheme such as baking and selling cookies in order to get more money. Encourage them to use their imagination, be creative and also, decide what the most important thing about Christmas is to them. Students have 20-30 minutes to plan.

Language

Making suggestions Accepting suggestions Rejecting suggestions
How/what about …ing…?

Why don’t we…?

We could….

Shall we…?

I reckon/think we should/ought to….

What do you think about …ing?

Let’s…

 That’s a great idea!

Good idea!

I was thinking the same thing.

You took the words right out my mouth.

 That’s a terrible idea.

Are you joking?

Don’t be silly.

I’m not sure about that.

It’ll be too cold/expensive etc.

Presentations

After 20-30 minutes students present their plans to the rest of the class and explain their reasons:

“We’ve decided to spend Christmas in Germany because we want to visit the famous Christmas markets”

After all the presentations, students vote on the plan that they like best.

Posted in Conversation Classes

Collaborative Speaking: Planning the School Trip

Posted on by Tim Warre

Image credit: www.rayburntours.com

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is a collaborative speaking task for B1+ students in which they decide how they would spend €2500 on a trip to London for their class. Download the powerpoint below.

Collaborate and Negotiate

Put students in groups of 3-4, project the powerpoint. Explain the situation to them: They have to decide how they are going to spend €2500 they have for a class trip to London. The money has to cover their transport, accommodation and activities. They need to reach a decision about how to spend the money and give reasons for their answer. Will they travel by bus? Which takes longer but costs a lot less. Will they stay in a 5* hotel? Or will they slum it in a 1* hostel and save the money for the VIP activity package? Give students a few minutes to make each decision and then present their choice and reasons to the group.

Follow up

Students write an FCE style review or report on the their trip to London.

 

Posted in Conversation Classes, Exam Preparation Class

Get Organised! Collaborative Speaking Tasks

Posted on by Tim Warre

Image credit: www.organisemyhouse.com

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is a speaking lesson plan designed for teenagers that focuses on various exponents of suggesting, offering, agreeing and disagreeing. The main aim of the lesson is for students to improve their collaborative speaking skills, it will work well as preparation for FCE/CAE speaking exams. You will need the powerpoint and teacher’s notes below:

Get Organised!! – Powerpoint

Get organised Teachers notes

Teacher’s notes

The class is loosely based on Willis’s Task Based Learning in that students are given the opportunity to repeatedly practice a similar task and hopefully internalise some useful exponents for collaborative speaking.

Put students into groups of 3, it would also work with pairs but 3s are ideal. The idea is that groups perform the tasks separately and afterwards compare their decisions in a mini-presentation.

Show the 2nd slide of the power point. Clear up any doubts about the different exponents on the left.Then have students perform the task in their groups, encourage them to use a range of expressions and to be imaginative. Monitor and board any vocabulary they need, or any issues they have with the form or pronunciation of the exponents. Groups then feed back in open class.

Note: This is a good opportunity to teach the difference between “will” for decisions in the moment of speaking and “be going to” for a future intention. Students will discuss the different options using will:

“We’ll have the party on Friday so we can stay up late.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Then when the time comes to present their decisions to class they will change to “be going to.”

“We’re going to have the party on Friday so we can stay up late.”

Then students go back to their groups and repeat with the next task but trying to bear any corrections you boarded during the first task in mind. Again groups feed back in open class and compare and contrast their ideas.

For the remainder of the tasks on the powerpoint the exponents are hidden initially but can be shown with a click of the mouse or the right arrow key. They idea is that you gradually phase out having the exponents on the board in the hope that they continue to use them from memory.

Follow up

Students could write an FCE/CAE style report on one of the events they have organised. It could either be a report after the fact stating the strengths and weaknesses of the event or a proposal for a future event putting forward different ideas and making recommendations.