Activity type: this is a fluency activity in which students have to stand in lines and talk. This is very useful for students who do not like to talk and who feel embarrassed talking in front of the class.
Level: All levels - will depend on what you ask the students to talk about.
Teacher's notes:
- Divide the class into two groups. Tell one group to stand shoulder to shoulder, in a line down the center of the class. Tell them all to face the same direction e.g. towards the whiteboard.
- Tell the other group to stand in front of this line; shoulder to shoulder facing the other line of students i.e. you now have two rows of students.
- Tell the students that you are going to ask them to talk about something with the person opposite them until you tell them to stop.
- Set a question (examples below) and tell the students to discuss it.
- When you tell the students to stop, one line is going to move down a person (in one direction). The last person at the end of the row will have nobody to stand in front of; he/she will have to move all the way from the bottom of the line to the top in order to find someone to stand in front of.
- Set another question and allow the students time to talk. Repeat the same procedure i.e. when you tell them to stop, the same line moves down one person and the last person goes from the bottom of the line to the top. Note that only one line keeps moving.
- Keep doing this until they have covered all the questions that you want them to.
Note: this is a nice activity to do with adolescent learners because it is structured but has a certain novelty value attached to it. It also ensures that all of the students talk to different people. The structures chosen below are conditional sentences; you can use structures depending on what you are covering in class. You might also want to simply ask open questions to develop fluency.
Possible questions to discuss:
- What would you do if you found a wallet full of money on the pavement/sidewalk?
- What would you do if you were asked to lead your country?
- What would you do if you were told that the world was going to end tomorrow?
- If you could meet one famous person, who would it be?
- If you could be famous for doing one thing, what would it be?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change?
- If you could travel to one country, which country would it be?
- If you could be somebody else for a day who would you be?
- What would you do if you were given a million dollars?
- What would you do if you had to change your job?
