speaking activities for teenagers – Page 2 – Tim's Free English Lesson Plans

Speaking Activity: Persuading/Convincing Role-plays

Posted on October 20, 2015October 20, 2015 by Tim Warre

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is a speaking activity for intermediate and upwards on the subject of persuading and convincing. It can be used as preparation for FCE and CAE due to its similarity to part 3 of the speaking test.

You will need this powerpoint:

Debate, Discuss, Persuade

Split the class into groups of 4 or 5. Use this quizlet set to practice language for convincing and persuading. For higher levels get them to brainstorm the language in pairs first and then board it.

Language from the quizlet set:

Don’t you _________ it would be better to go to Ibiza?
__________ it be better to go to Ibiza?
I think we _________ go to Ibiza.
I suggest/recommend ________ to Ibiza.
We o_________ to go to Ibiza.
I i__________ that we go to Ibiza.
By ______ the best idea is to go to Ibiza
What/How _______ going to Ibiza?

Key:

think

Wouldn’t

should

going

ought

insist

far

about

Students discuss the different situations in the powerpoint in their groups of 4-5. Nominate one person from the group to be the person who the others must persuade (parent, headmaster, boss, editor, friend)

Report back at the end. Who was the most persuasive?

Conversation Classes, Ice-breakers

Find someone who… Summer holiday edition

Posted on September 29, 2015October 4, 2016 by Tim Warre

Image credit: travelnotings.com

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is my version of the classic “Find someone who…” speaking and ice-breaking activity designed for teenagers for the first class after the summer holidays. I’ve also added a version for adults.

Download the handout here:

Find someone who – teenagers

find-someone-who-adults-edit

Warmer – Guess my holiday

Students get 20 questions to guess where the teacher went on holiday.

Allow students to ask you more questions to find out some information about the holiday.

Main Activity

Project the handout onto the board. Students must circulate, speaking to all their classmates until they have found someone who did all of the listed activities during the summer holidays. When they find someone who has done one of the activities they must also ask them for some details and record them in the details column.

Before starting model past simple yes/no questions on the board:

Went to another continent:

Did you go to another continent?

Also model questions for details:

Where did you go?

What did you do there?

What did you eat?

The winner is the first person to find someone people who have done each of the things on the list or prove that nobody has done them by speaking to everyone.

Handout

Try to speak to everyone in the class. You must find someone who did the following things in their summer holidays.

Find someone who…

Activity	Person	Details
Went to a different continent
Tried some new food
Went to a summer camp
Had a party
Ate McDonald’s
Tried a new activity
Visited another part of Spain
Saw an amazing monument
Hurt themselves
Didn’t leave Catalonia
Earned some money
Bought some new clothes
Went on holiday without their family
Visited a famous city

Conversation Classes

Dilemmas and Debates

Posted on June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 by Tim Warre

Image credit: www.osomac.com

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is a straightforward “What would you do?” speaking activity to practice hypothetical conditionals and just generate debate and conversation. Download the powerpoint below and project it or print it:

Dilemmas and debates

Language of agreeing and disagreeing will be useful.

Agreeing	Disagreeing	Ending an argument:
We see eye to eye I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s exactly how I feel. You have a point there. I was just going to say that. Absolutely.	We don’t see eye to eye I take your point but I tend to disagree with you there I’m afraid I have to disagree with you there I beg to differ That’s not always the case.	Let’s just move on shall we? I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree.

Credit to: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tracyclayton/moral-dilemmas-that-will-break-your-brain#.lhwmbK9XK

For a couple of the ideas.

Conversation Classes, Games

Game: Articulate

Posted on May 25, 2015October 15, 2015 by Tim Warre

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

Image credit: www.drumondpark.com

This is a great end of year game to play with all ages and levels. It’s based around the popular board game “Articulate” which is a staple in my household at Christmas.

You will need a die and the handouts listed below printed and cut up.

articulate objects

articulate nature

articulate places

articulate famous ppl

For action cards you need to print out the MES flashcards below and write the verb next to the picture:

Click to access can_cards.pdf

Click to access verbs2_cards.pdf

Click to access verbs1_cards.pdf

The Game

Split your class into groups of 3. Have each group come up with a team name and write them on the board. Decide which team goes first. The first player comes to the front of the class and rolls the dice; the numbers correspond to the different categories:

Objects
Nature
People
Places
Actions
You choose

If students roll a 6 they can choose whichever category they like. The player than has 1 minute to describe as many of the words on the cards to their team-mates as they can. Teams score 1 point for each word correctly guessed. If the describer doesn’t know the word or their team are struggling to identify it, they can pass but they can only pass 3 times. Play then passes to the next team. Play at least 3 rounds so that each member of each team has a go at describing.

The rules to describing are:

You can only pass 3 times.
No miming.
Strictly English only.
No spelling words out.
Silence from other teams while one team is playing.

The game is a perfect opportunity to practice different structures such as relative clauses, adjective order and many more. Below are photos of the prompts I put on the board for my pre-intermediate teenagers class:

Make sure you drill the frames with the students beforehand and do a few yourself to demonstrate. I always carry the (rather battered) card packs in my folder in case I’m ever stuck for an activity for the last 10 minutes of class. Alternatively, play it as an end of term treat and bring sweets for the winning team. Let me know how it goes.

Conversation Classes, Games, Grammar Classes

Modals of Obligation, Necessity and Prohibition: Pictionary!

Posted on May 5, 2014May 28, 2018 by Tim Warre

Just a quick note…

Before you use these materials… We’ve created a new podcast aimed at B2+ level English students and teachers alike. You can listen for free at our SoundCloud page below. You can download teacher’s notes to accompany them from our Facebook page or from this blog. All comments and feedback welcome! Give us a like and a share 😉

https://soundcloud.com/2tspod

https://www.facebook.com/2tspodcast/

Modals of Obligation, Necessity and Prohibition: Pictionary!

This is part of a series of 30 minute lesson plans I have been writing for conversation classes with small groups of teenagers. Each one covers a specific grammar point and features a game to encourage surly teens to use it.

Introduction

Write “rules” on the board. Tell students to tell you all the rules that their school imposes on them and board them all. Try to elicit the following structures:

Prohibition:

Mustn’t/can’t/not allowed to

You mustn’t run in the classroom. You’re not allowed to use your mobile phones in class. You can’t smoke in school.

Obligation:

Must/have to

You have to study. You have to be at school at 9am. You must bring your gym kit for PE.

Lack of obligation:

Don’t have to (careful with this one, ensure they understand the difference between mustn’t and don’t have to)

You don’t have to come to school on Saturday. Children over 11 don’t have to wear uniform.

Once you have brainstormed all the different rules, ask the students this:

Which rules do you follow?

Which rules do you break?

Which rules annoy you the most?

Do any teachers let you break the rules?

Pictionary

Print and cut up the handout.

Draw the following picture on the board:

Elicit the prohibition: You mustn’t smoke.

Split the class into teams of 3-4. Tell them they are going to play pictionary. However, some of the rules are a little strange. Give students time to think of a team name and invite the first person from the first team to the board. They have a minute and a half to draw as many rules as they can for their team, for each rule they guess they get 1 point. The winning team is the one that gets the most point after 2-3 rounds. If you run out of rules, get students to come up with new ones for the other teams to draw and guess. Encourage them to make them as strange and difficult as possible.

Here are the rules from the handout:

You mustn’t sleep in your car	You have to wear a helmet
You are not allowed to feed the lions.	You mustn’t touch the dolphin.
You have to switch off your mobile.	You mustn’t play ping-pong when it’s raining.
You have to be in bed at 10pm.	You mustn’t speak during the opera.
You have to wear long trousers.	You’re not allowed to drink in the computer room.
You mustn’t sing to the monkeys.	You’re not allowed to play video games after 11pm.
You have to take your medicine before going to bed.	You’re not allowed to go skiing in the dark.
You mustn’t drink the water.	You have to have a shower before going in the swimming pool.

Conversation Classes, Exam Preparation Class, Uncategorized

Picture Description Lesson Plan

Posted on February 3, 2014May 28, 2018 by Tim Warre

Before you use these materials, why not check out our new podcast for learners and teachers alike? It’s called 2Ts in a Pod, have a listen here:

This is a fun lesson plan in which students work in pairs describing and drawing pictures. It will be useful for students preparing for Cambridge exam speaking activities.

You will need this handout: Pics for describing

Put the following picture on the board and hand out other copies to the class:

Ask students what they can see in the picture.

What’s in the background?

What’s in the foreground?

Go through the following vocabulary on the board:

In the background/foreground we can see…………..

On the left/right

At the top/bottom

He’s wearing……………..

He’s facing left/right/the camera

He looks happy/sad/ etc.

Prepositions: Next to/beside, above, below, in front of, behind.

Now tell students that you are going to describe a picture and they have to draw it. Tell them to draw quickly, also remind them about perspective (things in the foreground appear bigger than in the background)

Describe the following picture to them:

Try to give as much detail as possible. Collect in the pictures and stick them to the board and then show the real photo. Invite students to comment on the differences and vote for the one they think is most accurate.

Now put students in pairs, tell them that one person is going to describe and the other is going to draw. Have them position themselves so that the describer is facing the board so that he/she can see the vocabulary and the other should be facing them. Be careful that the different pairs are spaced out so that they cannot see each other’s pictures. Give them 5 minutes to describe and draw. Once the 5 minutes are up collect in the pictures and invite comments and votes again. Have students swap roles and repeat as many times as you like. There are several pictures in the handout with different degrees of difficulty.

Follow up activity:

For FCE or CAE students use the pictures for a practice run of the speaking part 2, in which students must compare and contrast two pictures for 1 minute.