PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

Basic / Pre-Intermediate
New 1/2006

Here you find suggestions of oral practice activities to be used in your Basic and Pre- Intermediate lessons,
as referenced in the new Teacher’s Notes for these levels. Please bear in mind that not all activities cater
for the needs of all groups, so we urge you to be selective. All the activities described below can be
adapted to practice virtually any grammar point or lexical field.

1. Board Race

• Divide the class into two teams. Each team stands in a line facing the board. Divide the board into two
columns with the headings Team A and Team B.
• Give the first student in each line a marker.
• Give students a topic and tell them what the time limit is.
• Once you say ‘Go!’, the first student in each team runs to the board, writes a word/expression/phrase
associated with the topic in his team’s column, runs back and gives the pen to the second student in
line. Ss carry on until time is up.
• Ss sit down and what they wrote is checked with the WG. Teams score one point for each
word/expression/phrase in their columns, one extra if they are spelt correctly and a bonus point for the
ones that are not in the other team’s list.

2. ‘KNOW’ grouping

• Write on the board a list of 15 – 20 words you’d like to revise or diagnose how many words in that
lexical field Ss can recognise;
• Ask Ss to divide the words in 3 groups: KNOW (I know this word/phrase and can put it in a sentence),
MIGHT KNOW (I think I know this word/expression, but I’m not sure), DON”T KNOW (I’ve never seen
this one before!)
• (PW/GW) Ss compare their answers. If a St knows a word, they should teach it to their partner(s) by
explaining what it means and/or giving an example of a sentence with that word.
• Deal with the remaining ‘Don’t Know’ words with the WG and allow Ss some time to record the words in
their notebooks or in the Student’s Notes pages in their Workbooks.

This activity can also be used for self-assessment of performance objectives if you wish. Elicit from Ss and
write on the board the ones dealt with in class so far and ask Ss to group them in 3 categories: I can do
this quite well; I’m not sure of I can do this; I cannot do this yet. When they get together to share their
groupings, they should be prepared to try and ‘teach’ the others how to perform that objective. Their
reporting back will be important for you to select what should be revised or practised further.

3. Grammar Auction

• Prepare 10-12 sentences focusing on the grammar covered in the previous lessons.
• Divide the class into teams of four or five and have Ss discuss which sentences are correct and which
are incorrect, speaking quietly so the other groups can’t hear them.
• As they finish, check that they know what an auction is and how to bid for items. Tell the class that each
group has got £ 30,000 to spend on the sentences they considered correct.
• Act as the auctioneer as Ss bid for the sentences.
• They can also use tactics to persuade other teams to buy incorrect ones by bidding high for incorrect
sentences, for example. Keep track of how much money each group spends. Sts must stop bidding
when they have no more money.
• When all the sentences have been sold, check which ones are correct with the WG. The group who
bought the most correct sentences wins. If there is a tie, the group who spent less money wins.
• Allow Ss some time to work together to correct the wrong sentences and check answers with the WG.

N.B.: If you want to add a bit more challenge, do not let Ss discuss in advance which sentences are
correct. Read out a sentence and allow teams to discuss secretly for about 20 seconds only before they
start bidding straightaway.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 1

4. Dialogue Build

• Select a 6 – 8 line conversation related to any topic in the coursebook units.

• Draw two people on the board for easy reference.
• Work in lockstep. Set the context (e.g. in a restaurant).
• Draw a speech bubble from the person who speaks first and insert a prompt, e.g. ‘order?’. Elicit the
target sentence (‘Are you ready to order?’) and drill the sentence with the whole class and then
individually. Don’t write the sentence on the board yet.
• Draw a reply speech bubble from the other person and insert a prompt e.g. ‘soup + salad’. Elicit what
the person should say and repeat the process as above. Do this for all the lines of the conversation.
• Have Ss practice the conversation in pairs referring back to the prompts on the board if they so wish,
taking turns.
• Have Ss work together in pairs or groups to re-construct the dialogue, writing it in their notebooks.

5. Running Dictation

This is an example of activity involving four skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing).
• Choose a short text, which can be used to introduce a topic in a lesson, provide a context for new
language, revise language items or provide extra reading practice. Put one or more copies of the text
on the board.
• Divide the class into pairs. One person in each pair should be the secretary and have pen and paper.
• When you say ‘Go!’ the other (reporter) should run to the board, remember as much as they can from
the text and run back to the secretary, who must write down exactly what he/she hears. When a
reporter has told his/her secretary all they can remember, he/she should go back to the board and
repeat the process.
• In the middle of the activity, tell Ss to change roles.
• The first pair to complete the text wins, but allow the activity to continue until most Ss have finished.
• Ask Ss then to go to the board and check their version against the original, making the corrections
needed.

6. Drills

A drill is an oral exercise when Ss say short, restricted pieces of language in order to get more comfortable
forming AND pronouncing them.
The simplest kind of drill is simply ‘listen and repeat’. Another type is a ‘question/reply’ drill and is set out in
frames. Have a set of about 5 Yes/No questions and answers prepared.
• Use the first question as an example. Read the first question aloud yourself, clearly and naturally and
then read the reply.
• Repeat the example but don’t say the reply, Indicate that you expect a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer with a
gesture or cue card.
• Get Ss to say the answer. If only one or two say it, indicate that they should model it for the rest.
• Repeat the question. Aim to get the whole class giving a fluent reply.
• Go on to the next question and repeat the procedure. Speed up once Ss get the hang of it.

Variation I: Sentence-making drills

Instead of saying a question, offer some cue words. The Ss’ job is to use these words to make a question
or sentence themselves. A good extension for the drill, if it involves questions, is to ask Ss to work in pairs
and ask and answer each question, taking turns.

Variation II: Substitution Drills

Offer a starter sentence and then a cue word (or words). Ss must put the cue word into the original
sentence.
Example: T: She likes coffee. Tea.
Ss: She likes tea.
If the changed word is always in the same position, we have a simple substitution drill. However, we can
also vary the position of the word to be replaced or give an instruction rather than a cue word, creating a
progressive substitution drill.
T: She likes coffee. Tea.
Ss: She likes tea.
T: hates
Ss: She hates tea.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 2

 T: Question.
Ss: Does she hate tea?

This kind of drill provides an interesting challenge for students, as it often demands careful thinking and
language processing, preventing them from giving automatic responses. Make sure pace is kept brisk all
along.

7. Repeated Anecdotes

This can be used to introduce or practice new lexical items in the context of a story or anecdote.
• Write the new words on the board and just leave them there – don’t teach or explain them.
• Introduce the characters of the story using photos or drawings.
• Start telling the story. When you get to a word just before one of the language items you want to
present or revise, pause and wait for Ss to choose and call out the right item from the list you wrote on
the board.
• When they get it right, repeat that section of the story yourself with the correct item. Then continue for
the rest of the story, repeating the procedure for each language item you want to focus on.
• When you get to the end, start the story again and see if Ss can say the right collocation faster. You
can do this more than once, provided the pace is kept brisk.

Variation I: Cough anecdotes

• Start your anecdote but when you get to one of the words written on the board cough loudly and every
time you cough invite Ss to tell you which word should replace the cough.
• As follow up, ask them to work in pairs and tell another anecdote to a partner, including the words on
the board and pausing or coughing as you did. Their partner then has to guess which word should go in
the pause or cough.
• If you do this focusing on common collocations, take a moment to wrap up by exploring them on the
board with the WG.

8. Pyramid Discussions

A pyramid discussion gives Ss time to think, prepare and try out their thoughts and arguments on small
number of people before moving on to talk to the whole class. Pyramid discussions work very well with
selection and ranking tasks, i.e. tasks where Ss are given a number of items and have to select or order
them (e.g. choose five things you should take with you to a desert island to make sure you survive etc.).
• Individually: Ss think about the problem and write notes expressing their opinions to themselves. This
should not take more than 1 or 2 minutes.
• Pairs: Ss get together and compare their views. After about two minutes, tell them they must reach a
consensus on the topic they are discussing.
• Larger groups (4 or 6): Ss discuss again and reach a compromise solution from the whole group.
• Bring the WG together. By this time, Ss will have expressed their views and argued their case a
number of times, and also had more experience of reaching agreement. The aim of this stage is to
reach consensus, if possible, with the WG.

9. Changing Seats

• Have Ss arrange their chairs in a circle with you standing in the centre.
• Ask them to think for a moment about what they did at the weekend.
• Tell Ss that you are going to ask some of them to change seats. Say “If you watched a movie at the
weekend, change seats.”
• Sit down in one of the seats yourself while they are changing places, leaving one person without a seat
in the middle.
• Ask this person to give the same kind of instructions as you did, e.g. “If you washed your car at the
weekend, change seats.”
• Continue the game for about 10’ with a new person left in the middle each time.

N.B.: This can be used to practise a number of other structures, e.g. ‘If you eat toast for breakfast, change
seats” (present simple for routines). If you wish to focus on accuracy, insist that nobody change seats until
the instruction is grammatically correct.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 3

10. Making Sentences Game

• List words to be revised on one corner of the board.

• Divide the class in groups, with a maximum of 8 Ss per group.
• Divide the board in equal sections according to the number of groups you’ve got.
• Ask Ss in each group to line up in front of their section of the board, with the first St in each line holding
a board marker.
• Ss have 10 minutes to write as many sentences as they can and the group that writes the most
sentences is the winner.
• Each sentence must contain a word from the list on the board.
• The first St writes a word on the board and goes to the end of the queue. The second St comes and
adds a word immediately in front of or behind this word, then goes to the back of the queue. The third
St comes and does the same and so on.
• Each new word added must make the sentence grammatically correct.
• Repeat the process until time is up.
• Ss return to their seats. Go through the sentences, eliciting corrections and awarding points to the
deserving groups.
• If you need to make Ss’ lives easier, allow them to add a word to the sentence whenever they can think
of one instead of waiting for their turn.

11. I didn’t say that!

• Divide the class into two big teams, A & B, and send team B out of the room for a couple of minutes.
• Tell a story or anecdote to group A. Alternatively, have them watch a short video sequence. Do not
allow them to take notes at this point.
• Bring in group B. Each St in group B joins a St in group A. St A retells the story or reports what they
saw on video to St B.
• When they finish, Sts B move to a different partner and tell them the story they heard from St A.
• As they finish, ask Sts A to compare what they heard to what they told before.
• To wrap-up, work with the WG for error correction and to reach a common version for the story.

12. Balloon Chase

• You will need a balloon for this activity. Select one lexical field for review.
• Tell students to stand in a large circle. Explain that the aim of this activity is to keep the balloon in the
air for as long as possible. It must not touch the ground. But before they can bat the balloon up, they
must call out a word from the vocabulary area selected for revision. Let them know before you start
whether repetitions are allowed.

This game can also be used for extra grammar practice, for example. Write about 20 verbs on the board, in
their base or infinitive form. Students have to call out the simple past of one of them before they hit the
balloon. In addition, it can be used to teach pronunciation as well: write a word containing the sound you
want to practise on the board, for example “meet”. Before students can hit the ball, they have to call out a
word containing that sound.

13. Draw a sentence

• Divide the class into two teams, A and B. Give each team some slips of paper and ask them to write
sentences of at least 4 words using the verb tense or structure in focus in the CB unit (e.g. “I came here
alone” – past simple). Make sure teams work separately and do not hear each other’s sentences. When
they have finished, collect the slips.
• Call out a member of each team to the board and give them a slip with a sentence prepared by the
other team. Set a time limit for the students to draw their sentences. They must not write, speak,
gesture or whisper! The first team that shouts it out correctly gets a point.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 4

14. Agree/disagree

This activity is useful for Ss to share their views on a certain topic, especially at Pre-Intermediate level.
• Ask Ss to stand in the centre of the classroom and establish that the right side of the room is the ‘agree’
corner, the left side is the ‘disagree’ corner and the centre is the ‘I’m not sure’ zone.
• Read a statement you want your Ss to discuss. Each student should walk from the centre of the room
to the corner that best represents their opinion on that statement. If they have no particular opinion,
they should remain in the centre.
• Once they get there, they should explain in one minute to a person standing next to them why they
walked towards that side of the room and then return to the centre to listen to the next statement.

Variations:
• Instead of agree / disagree / I’m not sure, different areas of the room can be labelled as true / false,
always / sometimes / never, etc.
• Different Ss can be asked to read statements instead of the teacher.
• Ss can be paired up with people who walked towards the opposite side of the room and instead of
justifying their choices, attempt to convince their partner to change sides.

15. Walking around with a song

This is an alternative for SS to change partners several times while an activity is in progress. It is specially
useful for mill drills and activities in which Ss have to interview several partners.
• Play an upbeat song for students to walk around the room to the rhythm for about 5 to 10 seconds.
• Pause the CD/tape. Each St then pairs up with the person standing closest to them to carry out the
activity.
• Start playing the song again so they start walking again. Every time you pause the CD/tape they should
pair up with a different person.

16. Dictogloss

You can do dictogloss with any short text for diagnosing/getting students to notice/practising either lexis or
grammar. The basic procedure is as follows:

• Tell the students that you are going to read a text aloud to them and that they should just listen. You
could ask them a couple of comprehension questions after the first reading just to check what they’ve
understood.
• Tell the students that you are going to read the text aloud once more and that they should try and write
down the text as you say it. Obviously they won’t be able to write down everything, but they should
write as much as possible and make sure they include the key words. (Depending on the level of the
group and or the difficulty of the text, you may want to read the text a third time).
• Put Sts in pairs or small groups and ask them to try to reconstruct the complete text as accurately as
possible. There should be one secretary in each group who will write the complete text.
• Get groups/pairs to compare their versions.
• Show Sts the original text and get them to comment on things they notice that are different between
their own text and each other’s as well as the original.

17. Shadow reading

Having completed a listening activity, refer Sts to the tapescript. Sts are to read the tapescript along with
the person on the tape. They will have to speak at the same speed as the speaker and copy pronunciation
features of his/her speech, including intonation and features of connected speech.

Variation:
You could do this exercise three times. The first time, Sts follow the script in their head and use their ‘inner
voice’ to copy the speaker. The second time, Sts do the same only this time they mumble to themselves.
The third time Sts speak aloud along with the speaker. This process gives students the chance to practise
their performance before speaking aloud.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 5

18. 4-3-2 minute talks

The following procedure can be useful in developing learners’ fluency in speech.

• Learners work in groups: one student in each group gives a short talk for four minutes to one of the
others in the group.
• The same student then gives the same talk to a different student in the group, this time restricted to
three minutes.
• Again with a new partner, the student gives the same talk a third time, this time restricted to two
minutes.

Changing partners is important because the speaker is less inclined to add new information than they
would be if talking to the same ‘audience’ again. Reducing the time limit has the effect of encouraging the
speaker to focus on better, more fluent, versions of the same content.

References:

Most activities were adapted from the following sources:

• Redston, C. et al. (2005) Face2face Elementary Teacher’s Book –CUP.
• Scrivener, J. et al. (2005) Straightforward Pre-Intermediate Teacher’s Book –– Macmillan.
• Lewis, M. (ed.) (1997) New Ways in teaching Adults –– TESOL.
• Lindstromberg, S. (ed.) (1999) The Standby Book. CUP.
• Morgan, J. & Rinvolucri, M. (1986) Vocabulary. OUP
• Marsland, B. (1998) Lessons from Nothing. Cambridge University Press.

If you want more suggestions for practice activities, please check the following websites:
• www.onestopenglish.com
• http://iteslj.org/
• http://www.englishclub.com/
• http://www.efl-esl.com/esl-activity/index.html
• http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa042401a.htm
• http://www.iateflcompsig.org.uk/links08.htm

And the following Resource Books:

• Grundy, P. (1994) Beginners. Oxford University Press.
• McKay, H. & Tom, A. (1999) Teaching Second Adult Learners Cambridge University Press.

MATERIAL DE USO EXCLUSIVO DA ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURA INGLESA – S.P. É VETADA A REPRODUÇÃO. 6