IT WORKS

IN PRACTICE
More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all
worked for ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us your
own contribution. The contributors to this issue will each receive a digital
subscription to Modern English Teacher.

WHAT DID I DO YESTERDAY?

James Heal, Seville, Spain
This is a fun idea to practise or revise the past simple (with
positive and negative statements) with young learners or with
lower-level students. It requires very little preparation, which
is always a great help.
Explain to your students that, as you are getting older,
you have difficulty in remembering what you did yesterday.
Tell them that, luckily, you have a helper who is there to
remind you of what you did. (Make sure that for this activity
you tell the class that it is OK to correct the teacher, and that
the helper is actually helping the teacher, who feels they are
becoming a bit forgetful.)
Choose a strong student to be your helper, and tell them
that they are going to correct every statement you make.
Display the basic structure on the board to help them, and
drill the pronunciation. For example:
Yesterday I went to the supermarket.
No, James, you didn’t go to the supermarket. You went to Teacher: Yesterday, I went to the cinema.
the swimming pool. Helper: No, James, you didn’t go to the cinema. You went
Encourage them to be creative, but reassure them they to the supermarket. Your mother told me.
only need to replace or change the parts of the sentence in Teacher: Oh, that’s right! Thank you!
blue with something similar and appropriate. Teacher: Class, sorry, I didn’t go to the cinema yesterday.
Set the rest of the class an activity that requires only I went to the supermarket.
minor supervision, and rehearse a dialogue a couple of times Repeat the procedure several times, to ensure that all the
with your helper. students in the class are familiar with the structure, and
If you feel that the class will need further scaffolding, then get them to correct you, first in chorus and then in
check that the students are familiar with the past forms of the groups of three. Tell the class that memory loss seems to be
verbs they are likely to be using when it is their turn to speak. spreading around the class, and that some students are
Additionally, elicit posible endings to sentences that collocate now unable to remember what they did last weekend. Still
well with the verbs they will be using. Alternatively, have some working in their threes, explain that two students will
possible combinations on the board, especially if you feel this perform a dialogue, and the third will act as the teacher,
will help weaker students: ensuring the correct language is being used. While they do
Go to ... the cinema, the park, the supermarket this, go around the classroom, ensuring that the students
are on track and using the structure correctly.
Drink ... water, juice, coffee, tea
Students find the idea that their teacher suffers from
Eat ... an ice cream, some cake, pizza
memory loss really entertaining, and they love the fact that
See ... a friend, your grandmother, your teacher they are able to correct them. Remind the class that you are
Play ... tennis, the guitar, with friends grateful for the corrections and that there is nothing wrong
Once you feel that everyone is familiar with the structure, with correcting a teacher.
present the dialogue to the rest of the class with your helper. This activity is basically a simple drill, but disguised as
For example: something more fun. n

32 Issue 134 • May 2021 www.etprofessional.com

 IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

IN THE EXAMINER’S SHOES

Maxine Adamson, Southampton, UK
Students often find it easier to understand and complete
exam tasks if they have been given a chance to analyse the
way a task has been constructed and to put themselves into
the shoes of the examiner. One typical Speaking Paper task
in the Cambridge suite of exams consists of comparing and
contrasting a pair of photographs. I found that by challenging
my students to choose a pair of photographs of their own to
give to their classmates to work with, they thought a lot more
about the detail that you can find within a photo and the sorts
of things that an examiner might be hoping to hear.
First, we analysed a pair of photographs from a past
exam paper. I gave the class two photos of people engaged
in sport and asked them why they thought the examiners
had chosen these particular photos (reminding them that the
instructions are to say what is similar and different about
them). We then brainstormed a list of similarities and
differences. For example, both photos showed sport, but
one photo was of a tennis player in a professional I then asked the students to work in pairs and to look
competition with a large number of spectators; the other was through their own photos on their phones to find two that
clearly an amateur athletics event with young competitors would make a good exam task – not necessarily photos of
and no spectators. Once the superficial similarities and sports. (This could also be set as homework and might result
differences had been listed, I asked about the feelings, in a more interesting set of photos on a wider range of
motivation and attitude of the people taking part in these topics, as the students would have the opportunity to take
sports. When we had covered every aspect of the photos photos for the task.) I pointed out that they were now taking
that I or the students could think up, I asked them to say the role of the ‘examiners’, so they needed to choose two
whether they thought the two photos had been a good photos that they thought would give scope for the
choice for the exam. On the whole, the students agreed that ‘candidates’ to find plenty to say. This proved quite
they were, because there was plenty to say about them. We challenging, as they all tended to take photos of similar
then discussed other contrasts and similarities in sporting things or beautiful views in which nothing much was
events that might make good contrasting photos for an happening. To give them more of a chance to find good
exam task of this sort (eg a team sport and an individual photos, I allowed them to source them from magazines or
sport, a sport that requires a lot of equipment and one that the internet if they wished, but most students were taken
can be done without any equipment, a sport that can be with the idea of their own photos being used as exam
done by anyone, such as running, and one that requires a material and worked hard to find something that would be
lot of training, such as pole-vaulting). suitable amongst their own stock of pictures. I encouraged
them to produce a list of similarities and differences between
their chosen photos and a list of the vocabulary that the
‘candidates’ might use to describe them. By doing this, they
were essentially doing the exam task themselves, but the
work was disguised as preparing a task for others. When the
photos had been chosen and the lists made, I asked each
pair to join another pair and exchange photos. While one pair
in each four did the exam task, comparing and contrasting
the photos they had been given, the others listened and
consulted their lists of similarities, differences and vocabulary
items, to see how many were mentioned. After each task,
the pairs discussed what had been said and what might
have been said and the vocabulary that was used and could
have been used. In a class feedback session, the students
commented on how successful the chosen photos had been
and whether the ‘candidates’ produced the sort of language
the ‘examiners’ expected to hear.
The next time we did an actual exam practice task,
I found that the students analysed the photos much more
carefully and found a lot more to say about them. n

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