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What's Your Excuse?

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.

Planning a celebration
One word a minute
Once in a lifetime
Spelling contest
Class evaluation

  
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Planning a celebration

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 2, "Conversation."

Time: about 30 minutes. Would the class be interested in celebrating the end of the course in some way? If the answer is "yes," help students get started planning it with this fun activity.
  • Explain that students will work in groups and have ten minutes to discuss and make initial plans for an end-of-the-course party or class outing. Then each group will have two minutes to present their plan; the whole class will vote on the best one.
  • Help the class get started by doing some quick brain-storming: Elicit the types of things people talk about when planning a celebration and write them on the board for groups to use:

    Plan
    date and time
    what to do    		   where to go
    what to bring    		   who's invited

  • Students form groups to discuss and plan their ideas for an end-of-the-course celebration. Walk from group to group and give help as needed.
  • When ten minutes are up, groups take turns presenting their two-minute proposals to the class.
  • Now take a class vote (by secret ballot or through a show of hands) on which proposed class celebration was the best. The winning group is in charge of actually planning the real event.

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One word a minute

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 5, "Word Power: Collocation."

Time: 10–15 minutes. This activity reviews any unit's vocabulary and practices making sentences with pre-selected words. It could be used at any time for a quick warm-up activity or just a fun way to review vocabulary.

Preparation: Make a list of ten words from this unit or any previous unit or units. (Note: See the Key Vocabulary in the Unit Summaries, located at the back of the Student's Book.)
  • Students form groups. Name each group with a letter or number (e.g., Group A or Group 1) and write the groups' names on the board for keeping score.
  • Explain the activity: You will read a word aloud to the class. Within the next minute, groups compete with one another trying to think of as many sentences as possible using the word. Each time a group (or individual students within a group) comes up with a sentence, one of the students in that group raises his or her hand; then he or she says it to the rest of the class when called upon by you. If the sentence is correct, that group gets one point.
  • Give the class this example of how to play:

    Teacher:   Flower. F-L-O-W-E-R.
      "A rose is a flower."
      "Flowers smell sweet."
      "What's your favorite flower?"
      "Where can you buy flowers around here?"
      "Who do you sometimes give flowers to?"

  • Start the activity by reading aloud the first word on your list. A student from any group can raise his or her hand to make a sentence using that word. Continue for one minute, keeping score on the board. Then read the next word from your list. After ten minutes or ten words – whichever comes first – the group with the most points is the winner.

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Once in a lifetime

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 8, "Grammar Focus: Reported speech."

Time: 20 minutes. This activity provides a fun way of reviewing the present perfect. Here, students work in groups and prepare a questionnaire focused on unusual activities. Then students independently interview classmates from other groups to find out who has done any of the activities.
  • Divide the class into groups. Tell the groups to make up a questionnaire that contains ten questions about unusual activities. Each student writes down the group's questions on a piece of paper (i.e., each member of the group should have his or her own copy of the questionnaire) to use later in the activity. In this practice, tell students to use the present perfect – for example:

    Have you ever had a pet snake?
    Have you ever seen a TV personality on the street or in a restaurant?
    Have you ever gone skydiving?

  • Students get up and move around the class, asking the questions from their group's questionnaire. If anyone answers "Yes" to a question, students should write down that person's name and ask a few follow-up questions to get some more details.
  • Stop the activity after about ten minutes. Ask students to tell the class who answered "Yes" to any of their questions and to report what the person said. Encourage the rest of the class to ask both the interviewer and the interviewee additional questions.

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Spelling contest

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 12, "Reading: The truth about lying."

Time: 10–15 minutes. This activity provides an opportunity to check students' spelling and to review vocabulary from this and earlier units. It can be done at any time during the course. (Note: This game is similar to the Verb contest on page 131.)

Preparation: Choose a list of words for the contest. For this activity, students work in groups; between eight and ten words are needed for each group.
  • Divide the class into groups of four or five and assign each group a letter (i.e., Group A, Group B, and so on).
  • Choose a word from your list and present it like this: (1) Read the word aloud. (2) Use it in a short, simple sentence. (3) Then repeat the word by asking a group "How do you spell . . . ?" Give the group a few seconds to confer quietly on how the word might be spelled. Then one student from the group spells out the word. (Note: Students should take turns spelling the words aloud.)
  • If the spelling is correct, that groups gets a point; if it's wrong, ask the next group (e.g., Group B) to spell it. If no group can spell the word correctly, spell it for the class, write it on the board, and then go on to the next one.
  • Continue in this way, giving each group an equal number of opportunities to spell words. The group that has the most points is the winner.

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Class evaluation

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 12, "Reading: The truth about lying."

Time: 10–15 minutes. This activity gives the students a chance to give some feedback to the teacher (and to the school, perhaps) on the English course.
  • Brainstorm on the kinds of things that are usually included in an evaluation of a class or a course that is just ending. Elicit students' suggestions and write them on the board – for example:

    Class Evaluation
    textbook
    new vocabulary    		   exercises
    helpful activities    		   pair/group work
    teacher

  • Tell students that this is their chance to give the teacher some feedback on the course, i.e., what they liked/disliked about it and what suggestions they may have on how to improve it for future students. Ask them to take between five and ten minutes to write down their ideas and comments. (Note: This part could be assigned for homework.) Then collect the evaluations and read them over.

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