Unit 3 Grammar
If this is the answer, what’s the question? Activity: Class team game: identifying questions from the answers Language: Past simple, present perfect simple, present perfect continuous (question forms) Preparation: Make one copy of the worksheet. Cut into two sets of cards, A and B.
Procedure • Divide your class into two teams, A and B, on separate sides of the class. • Distribute the cards from each set to students in the appropriate team. They must not show their cards to one another. (If there are fewer than eight students in a team, some students will get more than one card; if there are more than eight students in a team, some students will need to work with a partner.) Explain that their cards contain a question (Q) and an answer (A). • Ask Team A to choose a student from their team to come to the front of the class with their card. On the board, they should draw a series of lines, one line for each word in the question on their card, and end this with a question mark. Each line should be big enough to write a word on, in such a way that the whole class can see it easily. • The student points at the lines on the board and says This is the question. Here is the answer, and reads out the answer on the card. • Team A must then try to guess what the question is, by calling out individual words. The student at the front writes any correct words in the appropriate space on the board. The team has 90 seconds to guess the sentence. At the end of this time, Team A gets a point for each word they correctly guessed. If there are any words that they have not guessed, these can be passed to Team B, who can earn ‘bonus’ points (you might like to set a time limit of 30 seconds for this). • It is then Team B’s turn to repeat the above procedure. The winning team is the team with the most points when all the cards have been used up.
Notes • You could award teams an extra bonus point if they manage to guess the whole question in the time allowed.
Communication
How long?
Activity: Whole-class mingling Language: Asking questions with How long ... ? + present perfect simple and continuous, answering with for and since Preparation: Make one copy of the worksheet for each group of twelve students. Cut the cards out as indicated.
Procedure • If there are more than 12 students in the class, divide them into groups. Give one card to each student in the class. • Tell the students that they are going to find out the answer to the question on their card by asking everybody in the class or group. Make sure each student knows the form of the question they should ask. All the questions begin with How long ... but make sure that students know whether to use the present perfect continuous, or the present perfect simple. • Now ask the students to go round the class or group asking and answering questions. Tell them that they can make notes about the answers people give. Encourage them to find out as much information as possible in answer to the question. • When they have finished, they should sit down and take it in turns to tell the class or group three things that they found out.
Extension Ask the students to write up the information they have gathered as a poster to be displayed in the classroom. e.g. Enrique has known his friend Jose the longest. He’s known Jose since they were born. Sara has been living in the same house the longest. She’s been living there for fifteen years. etc.
CLIL (Technology)
Bridge design
Activity: Designing and building a bridge in groups of four. Language: Past simple, construction Preparation: Make one copy of the worksheet for each student.
Procedure • Divide the class into groups of four and give each student a copy of the worksheet (they will need one each to write up their experiment). • Ask students what bridges they know of in their town or area. Point out that even if there are no rivers, there are likely to be bridges over roads or railways, or pedestrian bridges. Ask students in their groups to read the questions and discuss them. • Ask students if they have heard of the Millennium Bridge, or any other bridges in London. Ask them to read the text and answer the question, then discuss in their groups what they think about the bridge. • Tell the students they are going to have a competition to design and build a paper bridge. They will then test it to see how many coins can be placed in the middle, and the winning bridge will be the one that holds the most coins. • Elicit ideas for what students can do to make the paper stronger (e.g. rolling into tubes or folding will make paper more rigid and able to carry more weight). • Provide the students with scissors, A4 sheets of paper and scrap paper, and sticky tape, and explain the competition rules.
Rules 1 Your bridge will have to span a 40-centimetre distance between two desks and can only use the materials provided. 2 You only have one lesson to design, build and test your bridge. 3 Sticky tape can only be used at the joints. 4 The bridge cannot be stuck to the supporting desks.
Notes • Allow time at the end of the lesson for each bridge to be tested and scored. • Get students to write up their experiment individually and hand in their reports.
Key 2 The bridge swayed when a lot of people walked across it. It even made people feel sick.