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Time for a Change!
The activities below provide fun exercises for the entire class when you have extra time. They are designed to be taught with specific exercises in this unit. Click on an activity in the list below or scroll down the page.
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How can you say that?
This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 3, "Grammar Focus: Evaluations and comparisons."
Time: 10 minutes. This activity works well if students have sufficient information and/or strong feelings about two different cities that are "rivals" or that are often compared (e.g., New York and Los Angeles; Tokyo and Osaka). It also practices making evaluations and comparisons with adjectives and nouns (see Unit 3, Exercise 3). (Note: This activity could be used in any unit with topics that easily lend themselves to students' having opposing views.)
- Explain the activity: Groups compare two cities by making statements about why one is better or worse than the other. Then find out which two cities are the ones that two or more groups want to compare; label the cities City #1 and City #2.
- Form one group of students who thinks City #1 is better than City #2. Then form another group that thinks City #2 is better than City #1.
- Model with the two groups how to begin, like this: One student from Group A begins by making a statement that explains why City #1 (here, New York) is better than City #2 (here, Los Angeles). Then a student from Group B responds, and students from both groups take turns responding to one another's opinions by giving their own opinions and reasons. For example:
Group A, Student 1: New York is a much nicer place to live than Los Angeles because . . . .
Group B, Student 1: Oh, I don't agree. New York is too crowded and dirty. L.A. is better because . . . .
Group A, Student 2: But L.A. always has too many traffic jams on its freeways, and . . . .
Group B, Student 2: Well, I think New Yorkers are very unfriendly, but people in Los Angeles are . . . .
- If there is no real dissent between students in opposite groups, tell them to pretend they are in a debate – where students have to take a position even if they don't really believe in what they are arguing for or against.
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Sales pitch
This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 5, "Listening."
Time: 15–20 minutes. This creative activity practices describing a house or an apartment for rent; it also involves collaborative writing of a short paragraph to be used as an advertisement.
- Explain the activity: Students work in groups to prepare an ad for a house or an apartment for rent. The goal is to exaggerate the good points of the house or apartment and to try to make it sound as wonderful as possible. Tell groups to use some of the positive adjectives listed in Exercise 1 on page 14.
- To model an example ad, read the following paragraph aloud and then write it on the board:
The House of Your Dreams!
We have a beautiful house for rent in a quiet neighborhood near the university. This house is in excellent condition with new furnishings and a lovely yard. In back of the house, there's a swimming pool and a tennis court. This is the perfect house for a young businessperson or a family with teenage children. The rent is very reasonable, too, at only $1,200 a month. Please call (731) 975-3841 for an appointment to see it.
- Students form groups and work on designing and composing their ads together. Set a time limit of about ten minutes for this part. Go around and give suggestions as needed.
- When time is up, groups take turns writing their ads on the board and then reading them aloud to the class.
- After the last group presents their ad, take a class vote to find out which group has the most interesting property for rent.
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Word associations
This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 12, "Reading: Dreams can come true."
Time: 10–15 minutes. This activity extends and recycles students' vocabulary, with a focus on nouns. (Note: This activity could be adapted to any unit and the focus changed to adjectives, verbs, phrases, and so on.)
Preparation: Choose some nouns from this unit, or a previous one, with which students can readily make some associations.
- Explain the activity: You will call out a noun, and students have to quickly say words that they associate with it.
- Model the activity by seeing how many words students can think of that relate to a common topic, such as pets. For example:
Teacher: Pets.
Student 1: Dogs.
Student 2: Birds.
Student 3: Birdcages.
Student 4: Aquariums.
- Divide the class into groups. Tell each group to choose a secretary, who also gets to take turns giving word associations during the activity. Now call out one word. Each secretary writes it down and then continues to add each word that his or her group comes up with. Set a time limit of about three minutes.
- Call on groups to read out their words. The group with the greatest number of word associations is the winner.
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Charades
This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 12, "Reading: Dreams can come true."
Time: 20 minutes. This activity reviews the vocabulary for any activity or situation; i.e., it can be adapted for any unit.
- Students form groups. Each group thinks of several situations (e.g., ordering in a restaurant; eating an ice cream cone; playing the guitar; vacuuming) – one situation for each member of the group to mime.
- Groups take turns miming their situations in front of the class. Remind each group not to speak while performing; they can only nod their heads when another group guesses the situation correctly. The other groups call out their guesses. Keep score on the board: Each group that guesses correctly gets one point.
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