Answer-Questions

Paul D Carrington

PROCEDURE:

The average warm-up or time-killer game is pretty formulaic: the teacher asks a question, the student answers it. Nothing wrong with that, but conversation is a two-way procedure. While it is essential that a Japanese student traveling to an English-speaking country can respond to life-or-death scenarios such as being asked “How’s the weather?”, it’s equally paramount that should the need arise, they too can inquire “How’s the weather?”. This activity can be applied to pretty much any standard warm-up game, be it criss-cross, build and destroy, or the myriad of other gems found in this esteemed book.

Basically, having established over time a series of standard questions that the students (at whatever level) can comfortably respond to, change the formula so that they have to ask the question instead. You can explain the point of the exercise, or you can just switch one day and start your lesson by exclaiming “It’s sunny”. Once they figure out what to do, the students must respond by asking “How’s the weather?” Start with easy answers where the question is obvious (e.g.: “It’s 8.40”/“What time is it?”, “I like English”/“What’s your favourite subject?”) and proceed to more tricky ones where the students must be more creative in their reply (e.g.: “Kyoto-sensei is taller than Kocho-sensei”/“Who is taller, Kocho-sensei or Kyoto-sensei?”, “Five Gorillas”/“What did you eat for breakfast?”, “47,425,336”/“What’s the population of Ukraine?”).

NOTES:

This is an easy and obvious exercise, but it’s very adaptable and effective in developing conversational ability. You can randomly switch between warm-ups based on the Q&A formula or the A&Q formula to keep them on their toes, and it’s a good review to check how much of what you think you’ve taught them has actually been absorbed.