Introduction:

This is a great activity I’ve taken part in at acting classes. It allows intermediate students to practise used to in a really entertaining way.

Level:  B 1

Time: 1h

Objectives:

1. To write a short dialogue about students’ past habits using used to.
2. To act out another pair’s dialogue.

Procedure:

1. In pairs, ask students about some of the activities they used to do regularly when they were younger, e.g. in primary school, they used to go the beach every summer and they used to go round their friends’ house every weekend, etc.
2. In the same pairs, students must imagine they are two childhood friends who have just bumped into each other and start talking about all the fun things they did together when they were younger.
3. In pairs, students write a dialogue between the two friends giving specific examples of the things they did using the USED TO structure, e.g. Student A: Do you remember when we used to go to that body blitz dancing class? We used to have so much fun trying to follow the teacher’s instructions. She used to get very annoyed if I made a mistake and used to tell me to repeat the steps over and over again. Student B: Yes! That was so much fun. I used to be really scared of her. Oh, and do you remember when after class we always used to get fish and chips, we were so hungry. We used to sit on the grass, eat and just chat for hours.
4. Once the students have described at least 5 activities that they used to do together, ask the first two pairs to sit in front of the whole class. Try to create some space for students to perform this next activity.
5. Ask the first pair (Student A and B) to read out the dialogue. While they read, the second pair (Student A and B) must listen carefully and act out all the actions the first pair describe (Student A from the second pair acts out the actions mentioned by Student A in the first pair, Student B from the second pair acts out the actions mentioned by Student B in the first pair).
6. Encourage the other students to pay close attention to both pairs and check that all the actions have been “correctly“acted out.
7. Continue until all the pairs have read their dialogues and have had a chance to act out another pair’s dialogue.

P.S. Thank you again for all your help Alex.