Expert Panel

This activity involves five to eight volunteers who speak on a predefined subject, but they can only create their statements with each participant contributing one word. It’s challenging and good practice in word order and grammar, plus the statements often end up quite entertaining.

Preparation

Select a topic. (Alternately, you can ask the students for one.)

Procedure When to Use It

• To practice and build oral fluency • To practice/review lexical items • To practice discrete listening

Level

Skills

1. Ask for five to eight volunteers, depending on the size of your class. The volunteers form a line at the front of the room, facing the rest of the class. 2. Tell these volunteers that they are the members of the expert panel invited to present at the 29th Annual Conference on (whatever your topic is). 3. The rest of the class is the audience. They will formulate and ask questions of the panelists. 4. The panelists, however, will each answer with just one word, one after the other, going down and back up the line. They must make sentences in order to answer the audience members’ questions, but speaking only one panelist at a time and only one word at a time. 5. While you explain the above rules in detail to the panelists, ask the audience to write (or just formulate in their minds) questions for the panelists on the chosen topic. 6. After a few minutes, begin the panel discussion. Students in the audience take turns asking questions and the panelists respond.

Practice Materials

A chalkboard or whiteboard could be helpful

Preparation Time

None

Activity Time

10–20 minutes

Variations

1. This activity is a challenge for the panelists the first few times. If they are struggling to remember what their fellow panelists said, or if they are forgetting to say just one word, you can write the words in boxes (one word per box) as they say them on a nearby whiteboard or chalkboard. 2. Audience members can also participate in the same manner, by forming the questions word by word.