Question Formation KET

I've got this class you see, well, I've got about 10 of them. In this class we've got a really wide range of abilities. The battle for me is finding activities that keep 25 students engaged and learning at the same time when they're all of such varying levels and, of course, concentration spans.

This week I've been working with my 5th and 6th grade classes (both studying for A2 level exams KET and FLyers in this case). The biggest issue I've found with both levels is their inability to form a question. It stems from the fact Spanish uses intonation to signal questions and there is no rewording involved.

In the second part of the speaking exam (for now at least) students need to form questions with prompts and their partner needs to answer. Up until the other day we'd simply been using exam sample. I decided that students should design their own club/class/shop and make a pamphlet for said activity.  I modeled it, gave them and example and let their imaginations do the rest.

I told students they needed:
A name for the club/class/shop
An address
What can be learnt/bought
Opening times
A phone number
An email address
An age range
and a price. 
I then posted my example on the board.

After students had seem my example I elicited questions out of them. Without the use of prompts with 6th grade, with prompts with 5th grade. 

We came up with:

What's your class called?              (called)

What do you do in the classes?        (Do)

What do you do in the class start?   (time/start)

When are the classes?                        (When)

What time does the class finish?       (time/finish)

How much are the classes? or how much do the classes cost?   (How much) 

Where are the classes?              (where)

How can I get more information?    (more information)

Is it for teenagers?                (teenagers)

What number should I call?    (Phone number)

Is there an email address?      (email)

When modeling I tried to encourage students to not only ask the questions but to respond to their partners answers. 

A: What is the call called? 

B: It's called Cool Down Dragon

A: Ahhh, that's a... cool name. haha. What time do the classes start?

B: They start at a quarter past seven, in the evening. 

A: That's great, I'll have time for a snack first. How much do the classes cost?

and so on. 

If you want a handy worksheet version just have a little look here: Create Your Own Club Question Formation Worksheet.

It gave students a personal investment in the activity, it got them thinking about what was going to be asked in the KET exam and it gave them ownership. 

The students then spent 20 minutes goinjg round asking their partners what they had created and all about their classes. 

The biggest winner for me in this was that my weakest students got to feel on a par with the strongest students as the language was very simple and they could use their creative side. 

All in all a winner. Give it a shot. 

Now even though the KET exam is changing next year this is a great way to work on question formation. SO don't throw it out just yet. 

Have a lovely weekend one and all. 

H

What's that sound?

Good day one and all. A blog post with some new content, how strange I hear you cry from the rooftops.
Here's a little activity I love to do with all ages and levels. It's on of the more interactive, tactile, jumpy around activities we talked about at the conference on Saturday.
I like to choose my two sounds from the minimal pairs list. (Check the slides on the STRIP PowerPoint #jazzhands)Next I stick them on either side of the room and elicit what each sound is and draw students attention to their mouth shape when using the words.

The next step for my is to run through the words I am about to use in the activity. I usually do this with a simple slide and some coloured board markers. I get students to work in pairs and decide which colour is which sound. With the slide pìctures you can see two examples.

When the students are up to scratch with the words, their sounds and meanings I split the class into two or three groups.  There is a team leader who picks the words (which have been cut up and put in a cup) then they say the word to the next memeber of the team. Player two attaches a piece of blue tac to the word and passes it to player three. Again repeating the word. Player three then must say the word and stick it under the relevant phoneme stuck on the wall without looking at it.

When the time is up students sit down and check each others answers. The winning team is the one with the most correct answers. to push the students a little further I give them three minutes to then write a sentence or paragraph using as many of the words freom the previous activity. After three minutes each group has to read their sentnnces aloud.

I've found this last bit of drilling, in context, really helps improve the use of the sounds in question and since i've implemented this final part I've seen far fewer mistakes in the pron. Especially with the 3: sound. No longer do students talk about their beerday and their birthday is something we can all talk about together.

right that's all for today. It's great to be back blogging again. With some real content. I hope you find it of some use.

til the next tim