Introduction:

These are activities to develop speaking skills around the topic of animals. Students do the speaking activity in small groups, taking it in turns to express their opinions and asking for repetition and clarification.

Level: B1 +

Objectives:

1. To answer questions about animals and pets.
2. To express opinions using commonly used expressions.
3. To ask for repetition or clarification using commonly used expressions.

Materials:

1. Cat got your tongue_Speak up board game, one per pair or a group of three.
2. Cat got your tongue_ Speak up cards, cut up ( you could also write the expressions on lollipop sticks and use them again in other activities), one per pair or group of three.

Procedure:

1. Put the students into pairs, or groups of three, and elicit opinion language and expressions for asking for repetition.
2. Hand out a set of Cat got your tongue? Speak up cards and ask them to compare their expressions with the ones provided by you. Ensure correct understanding and clarify meaning.
3. Hand out a copy of the Cat got your tongue? Speak up board game and a die to use with the set of Cat got your tongue? Speak up cards.
4. In their pairs or groups of 3, ask students to divide the cards into two piles: red opinion expressions and blue asking for clarification and repetition expressions. 
5. Players take it in turns to throw the die twice – the first throw indicates which column they should use, and the second throw indicates which row, to obtain the question.
6. The player whose turn it is takes ONE card from the red pile and the remaining players take ONE card each from the blue pile.
7. All players must then answer the question in as much detail as possible and use the expressions on their cards.
8. Once the players have used the expressions they put the cards at the bottom of the piles.
9. At the end, ask the students to name three topics they have strongly agreed on, or disagreed on, with each other.

Fast finishers:

1. Ask students to think of or find 5 interesting animal facts and share them with their classmates, e.g. there is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas.

Related posts:

MEOW!MEOW!