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Phrases like “such as”, “to use a well-known example” and “e.g.” are vital for supporting arguments in situations such as presentations, debates and academic writing (including IELTS Academic Writing Task 2). They are also useful for clarifying meaning. Unlike much functional language, it is well worth students having a good selection of phrases for this point, as it is often necessary to give lots of examples and good English style means not repeating yourself, particularly in writing.

Phrases that have the basic “for example” meaning include:

• for instance, …
• …, for instance
• …, including(:) …

There are also many general expressions with the actual word “example”, including:

• By way of example, …
• If I can use an example, …
• To give an example, …
• I’d like to illustrate my point with an example
• An example to show (you) what I’m talking about is …

It is also possible to use the verb form: “This is exemplified by …”

Then there are phrases that come afterwards to show that the things mentioned are not the only examples:

• … among other examples.
• … and other things of that nature.
• … and so forth.
• … and so on.
• I could give other examples (but I think I’ve made my point).
• I’m sure there are more.
• Those are just a few examples.

At least as useful as the example giving phrases above are phrases that give more specific information about examples. Most of these can be categorised as follows:

Comparing with the previous example

• A better example is …
• A different example is …
• A less clearly connected example is …
• A less well-known example is …
• A similar example is …

Mentioning how often the example is used

• A common example is …
• A well-known example is …
• The most famous example is …
• A much quoted example is …
• A typical example is …
• An example that is often used to illustrate this point is …
• An obscure example is …
• This is often illustrated with the example of …

Evaluating the example

• Perhaps the best example is …
• By far the best illustration of this is …
• A great example is …
• My favourite example of this is …
• One of the best examples is …
• The most obvious example is …

Numbering the examples

• An additional example is …
• Another example is …
• There are many examples, such as …
• To give one example of what I mean …
• To give just one of many examples, …
• Just one of many examples is …

Giving additional information about the example

• A recent example is …
• An example (that) you might be familiar with is …
• An example from my own experience (which I’d like to share at this point) is …
• An example which I often use is …
• One example that I heard is …
• One example that springs to mind is …

You could also present questions asking for examples and phrases that explain why an example is being used, such as “This is difficult to link to our real lives without the use of an example.”

Typical student problems with example giving phrases

It’s surprising how often students are unaware of the very common abbreviation “e.g.” or at least of the fact that it can used both in speech and in most levels of formality of writing (in common with other Latin abbreviations like “i.e.” and “P.S.”). Some try to use “ex.” in its place, perhaps influenced by “Ex. 1” for “Exercise 1”.

Other common problems include:

• confusing formal and informal example giving phrases
• confusing example giving phrases that start new sentences and those that continue the same sentence (a typical written example being “For example, the house next door.”)
• a missing S in “one of the” structures, resulting in “One of the best example is”
• mixing up e.g. (for example) and i.e. (that is)

If students are likely to want to write a list of examples, they might need some help with punctuation such as when to use a colon and the difference between commas and semi-colons in lists.

Students also often have problems with the collocation “give + example”. This is usually due to direct translation from their own language, making phrases like “make an example”. It is usually easy to clear up due to the meaning of “give” being fairly literal in this collocation.

Perhaps the main problem students have in production is overusing “for example”, which is an issue not only because native speakers try to avoid repetition as far as possible, but also because “for example” is neither as precise nor as persuasive as “Perhaps the best example of this is …” or “An example from own personal experience that I’d like to share at this point is …”.

Classroom practice of giving examples

From these examples we can see that just getting students to stop repeating themselves and to use longer phrases would be a start. For the former, you could give them an activity where lots of examples are compulsory or necessary and tell them to use different phrases each time. This can be done with one person in each group of three to five students monitoring, giving points and/or noting down different phrases used. Longer phrases should naturally come out of this once they have run out of short ones, especially if you emphasise that even a slight variation (e.g. using “To give an additional example” after someone else uses “To give an example”) counts.

Another way to get longer phrases out of them is to give them keywords that they should compete in groups to make longer and longer sentences with. These should be words that are used in many sentences above like “example” and “give”. They can also be given less common words that are useful for making longer sentences to add to those words in the next stage.

All those kinds of keywords can be used in a game while they are speaking too, by getting them to use phrases with the words that they have on their worksheets to be able to cross them off and score a point.

By far my favourite game to practise the language of giving examples involves one student giving more and more examples of one thing (using different example giving phrases each time) until their partner guesses what the category is. This can be from a list they are given or from their own ideas. This is great both for covering lots of vocabulary and for making sure they really understand the meanings of the categories. I’ve also used this for cultural knowledge (e.g. famous Australians they should know before they go to university there), and it could also be used for revision or before brainstorming something.

The opposite of that game (and something that could follow it) is for students to compete to give examples of something (as always using different phrases each time) until one person repeats an example giving phrase, uses a phrase wrongly, repeats an example of that thing or runs out of examples of that thing.

Despite its scary sounding name, the language of prohibition can start with something as easy as “You can’t…” or “No…ing”, and is easy to present and useful in classroom instructions even with low-level young learners.

Presenting the language of prohibition

Suitable language, in approximate order of when I would present it, includes:

• You can’t… (here).
• Don’t… (here).
• No… (ing) (here).
• You mustn’t…
• You aren’t allowed to…
• ….is prohibited.
• … is banned.
• … without permission.
• Never (ever)…
• You aren’t supposed to…
• … under any circumstances.
• There’s a rule against…
• … has been banned.
• … used to be allowed, but…
• … isn’t permitted.
• Whatever you do, don’t…
• You are prohibited from…
• No unauthorised…
• This isn’t the right place for…
• Don’t you dare…
• Don’t even think about…
• Under no circumstances are you to…
• … is not the kind of thing which is allowed here.
• You would need special permission to… here
• (As a rule) we don’t allow… here
• You don’t have permission to…
• Any… (here) will lead to…
• The punishment for… is…
• … is restricted to…

You might also want to cover past forms like “You couldn’t…” and “You weren’t allowed to…”, and most communicative situations that bring up this language also tend to include asking for permission (“Is it okay to…?”) and/or the language of obligation (“You are obliged to provide two references”, “You must complete all five pages”, etc).

The most common way of presenting this language is with signs with a red line or cross on them meaning “No smoking” and “You can’t take pushchairs onto the escalator”. Given how universal these signs have become in workplaces and highways, this works with all but the youngest learners (something that unfortunately can’t be said of signs that are supposed to show positive obligation such as “You must wear a seatbelt”). Other possibilities include making a cross with your fingers, hands or arms (something that is a common gesture in some countries), shaking your head, tuttutting, or waving a finger from side to side.

Practice activities for the language of prohibition

Draw the prohibitions

Signs showing things that are banned can also be used to practise this language, for example by getting them to draw a sign for a particular sentence that they have been given until the people watching guess the sentence (something I call Prohibitions Pictionary). They could also compete to create the best signs to show something that is difficult to represent with pictures, such as “No chewing gum” and “Don’t tease your classmates”.

Decide on the prohibitions

Drawing can also be used as the last stage of this activity, in which students decide on the rules for a place such as a school, park or theme park. They could also design their own museum etc and then add signs to it to represent whatever rules their group decides on.

Find out the prohibitions

One student is given a strange prohibition like “You aren’t allowed to turn your back on the king” or “You can’t drive faster than walking pace” and the other people listen to hints and/ or ask questions until they guess what the rule is. This can also be set up as a kind of roleplay, e.g. where half the class are parents asking head teachers about the school rules, language students asking about a host family, or recruits asking HR departments about the company rules. The person who is answering has to respond to all questions honestly but doesn’t need to mention any strange rules that they aren’t asked about. The people who were asking the questions have to choose one of the places on offer and then are asked if they change their minds when told about any rules that they hadn’t heard about during the questioning stage.

Prohibit everything

In this roleplay task students are given a situation (e.g. in an airport or arriving at a host family’s house) in which one person must try to naturally mention as many prohibitions as possible, explaining the reasons for any that their partner questions. If you want to score it, students get one point for each prohibition they mention naturally, unless they can’t explain it when asked.

Why prohibit that?

Students try to guess why things have been prohibited, e.g. in particular places or at particular times, and then read or listen and check. They can then discuss whether those are good reasons or not.

More prohibited

Students rank prohibitions, e.g. by how important or how silly they are.

Prohibitions bluff

Students try to work out which prohibitions are true from a list of silly laws, laws in particular places such as private schools, old laws which have never been taken off the law books, laws particular to one country, etc. They can also make up their own imaginary prohibitions and work out which ones other groups made up and which ones are true.

Guess from the prohibitions

Students guess a country, type of premises, activity (e.g. sport) etc from a list of rules that are true in that situation.

A class contract

Students work together to draw up rules for this English class that they all agree on and agree to keep to.

Spot rules being broken

Students watch a video with lots of naughtiness (e.g. Dennis the Menace) and should shout “Stop” when they see a rule being broken and then describe it with some of the language above, e.g. “He mustn’t throw that there”.

Allowed everywhere

One student tries to say something that is allowed everywhere and their classmates try to think of circumstances under which it is prohibited, e.g. “Actually, that is banned on army bases”.

Freer speaking activities for the language of prohibition

Many of the topics mentioned above can be set up for discussion without pushing the language of prohibition, e.g. in a task-based approach. Suitable topics include choosing schools, improving behaviour in a school, getting rid of slacking in a company, cutting down on white collar crime or tax evasion, being a host family, bringing up children or teenagers, dealing with a country’s drug problem, and prison reform.

Requesting is perhaps the most important of all functions to teach, because it is used often and in all situations (restaurants, emailing, telephoning, etc) and varies a lot from language to language. Politeness is also more important for this point than for related functions like offering, and is easily confused with that and polite commands. For example, many students use please + imperative for requests in sentences like “Please give me a pen” and “Please get back to me as soon as possible”, sentences which should usually be actual request forms like “Can I have a pen, please?” and “Could you let me know as soon as you can?”

Common problems with requests

Please + imperative is often just translation from L1, but can also be due to confusion with offers. For example, students might think the offers “If you need any further information, please let me know” (so that I can help you) and “Please take a seat” (= “Help yourself to a seat”) are requests and so try to use those forms in requests.

Sitting down is a cause of further confusion, because there is also the form “Please sit down”, which is a polite command rather than a request because, for example, it will not be possible to start the speeches until everyone is seated. Although there is a thin line between requests and polite commands, “Please sit down” is quite different from the request “Can you take a seat over there?”, which is much more common and useful for students. This confusion can also extend to common emailing and telephoning forms, e.g. causing students to mix up “Thank you for your cooperation” (suitable for a memo politely telling people what they must do, e.g. when they must submit their travel expenses) with “I look forward to hearing from you soon” after a request. The other two most common confusions are using “want” and “give” in situations where more polite/formal language is needed.

Presenting the language of requests

Request forms that you might want to teach include, in approximate order by level:

• Can I/you…?
• Could I/you…?
• I’d like…, please.
• Could I/you possibly…?
• May I…?
• Do you mind…?
• Would you mind…?
• I’d be very grateful if you could…
• … if it’s not too much trouble.
• Do you think that you could…?
• Would it be possible for me/you to…?
• I was hoping you could… (for me)
• I could do with some help with…
• You don’t mind…, do you?

Which forms you present depends partly on what kind of English you want to teach. For example, in British English “Can I/you…?” is a standard form that can be used in the majority of situations, including when “Could I/you…?” might be more suitable in American English. Perhaps for that reason, “May I…?” is used for more polite requests in American English, whereas in British English it is only used to ask for permission (causing me amusement when my adult students ask me if they may go to the toilet). Very polite requests in British English tend to use very long and indirect forms like the “if it’s not too much trouble” structure above.

The other things students will need work include intonation, stress (e.g. lengthening the word “possibly” to make it even more polite) and how general rules of politeness (e.g. the longer the better) work with requests.

Perhaps the easiest and most useful way to present “Can you…?” etc is to give students useful classroom requests like “Can you write it on the whiteboard, please?” and “Can I borrow a dictionary, please?” very early in the course and expect them to use the whole correct requests. With young learners you can also do requests like “Can I go to the toilet, please?” and “Can I have a blue colouring pencil, please?”, and I’ve found it particularly important in these classes never to let them get away with “Pencil, please” in case that sticks forever. With any classes, having students using these forms for weeks or months before you need to actually present the form is obviously invaluable and can make explaining the function of the phrases unnecessary.

With higher level classes, students could classify conversations or phrases by politeness or function (e.g. dividing up requests and offers, requests and asking for permission, or requests and polite commands), then try and work out the general differences between them. If they have no idea about those distinctions yet, they will need other clues such as intonation, formality of the other language used, or situation in which the language is being used to help them classify and analyse the language.

Classroom practice of requests

As with presenting the language, the most obvious and often the best context for practice is classroom communication. A nice way of doing this more intensively than usual is to have an activity during which students can ask you for help as long as they use suitable requests phrases. For example, if students are asked to label objects in the classroom with Post Its, allow them to ask you (maybe a limited number of) questions such as “Could you tell me how to spell table, please?” and “Could you tell me what this is called in English, please?”

Students can also work in pairs or small groups to set each other challenges using similar language, e.g. “Can you tell me what this in English?” with pictures from previous units of the textbook. They can also ask each other to do things in the classroom, e.g. “Could you bring me a blue book, please?” and “Can you move the magnets, please?” There are several ways of setting this up as a game, e.g. the requester and the granter both getting points if they do it (and perhaps recall what it is later with language like “Juan moved the magnets for me”), the requester trying to find things that the granter can’t do, or the granter trying to find excuses not to do any of the things that are requested.

A similar activity can be played with requests in other situations by giving students blank pictures of kitchens, offices, etc and asking them to draw things in that match their partner’s requests.

There are also many games that can be played with “Can I have…?”, some of which start with real classroom communication. The simplest is for the teacher to give a clue as to what flashcards or realia they are holding (e.g. “They begin with C”, “They are machines” or showing the lumps in a bag caused by the plastic fruit inside), and giving that thing and so a point if students can guess what it is and ask for it with a suitable request. With realia and young learners, this is more fun if you ask them to hold all the realia you give them, taking them away if they drop any.

Students can also play similar games in pairs, asking each for objects or cards with “Can I have…?”, for example in the card game Happy Families or after passing things around a circle while other people try to keep track of where they are going.

Students can also ask for letters or words to make words or sentences for points, perhaps also allowing them one extra request each time they successfully do so.

I think it is fair to say that most language learners are asked to give their opinion much more in class than in the rest of their lives. This is true of British and American education – with formal debates and essays giving your own opinion being common in secondary education and the beginning of university but almost non-existent in real life – but even more so in “communicative” EFL settings. I am in the fairly typical position of being someone who has never taken part in a debate even in English. However, I have asked students who have never debated in L1 to do so in class in L2. The “standard” way of doing a reading or listening always ends with discussion questions about what they read or heard, and face-to-face meetings are even more common in Business English textbooks than they are in life (emailing, teleconferencing and online collaboration being much less common in class than in real life).

One possible reaction to all this would simply be to use more of a range of ways of speaking in class, e.g. more personal questions and extended speaking tasks, to keep the number of opinions given and asked for down. There are, however, plenty of good reasons for asking students what their opinions are:

• Students like being asked for and giving their opinions (probably precisely because they don’t have that opportunity to do so outside the classroom, especially in some cultures or for some parts of society such as women or younger people)
• It is in exams such as IELTS Speaking Part Three and FCE Speaking Part Four
• It can be tied in with lots of other things, e.g. cultural topics (e.g. “Agree which of this advice for visitors in your country is up-to-date or how acceptable or unacceptable things are”), learner training (“Give your opinions on these self-study techniques”) and spoken grammar (e.g. “Agreed” and “Couldn’t agree with you more” but not “Agree”)
• It is an easy way of adding speaking to almost anything

Given the usefulness and ubiquity of asking for and giving opinions, it is surprising how little time textbooks dedicate to the language learners will need in order to do so – and students certainly need some teaching because even in Advanced classes they will generally happily say “I think…” and “I agree” (if not “I am agree”) for an entire lesson if not pushed to expand the language they use.

What students need to know about the language of opinions

Books which do give some space to the language of opinions tend to mainly give alternatives to “I agree”, “I disagree”, “I think…” and “What do you think about…?” These are certainly useful, given that in English we don’t like to repeat words and expressions and that some of these such as “I disagree” are not common outside second language contexts. I have found, however, that telling students this is not always enough to get them to use “You are quite right”, “I’m not sure I agree”, “In my opinion…” and “What are your feelings on…?” once their focus is off the language and back on “winning” the debate. What they need in order to argue their position is by no means limited to agreeing and disagreeing anyway, and language that they have perhaps never been taught or practised intensively like suggesting compromises is one of the areas that tend to stick better than “I am in agreement”. This is also true of opinion phrases that are actually different in meaning such as “I was with you until you said…” or “The logical consequence of what you are saying would be…” Although how often they are used outside classrooms is debatable, colourful idiomatic expressions like “Off the top of my head…” and “No kidding!” also tend to be quite memorable.

Here are the things students will need to know in order to fully take part in an exchange of opinions (in no particular order):

• Strong and weak language (e.g. strong and weak agreement)
• Informal and formal language
• Polite language (e.g. polite disagreement and indirect questions for asking opinions)
• Collocations
• Supporting their arguments (e.g. giving examples, giving personal experience, giving statistics, quoting, giving reasons, explaining consequences, and predicting)
• Suggesting compromises or areas of limited agreement
• Typical mistakes to avoid (e.g. “I am agree” and “How do you think about…?”)
• Cultural differences
• Idioms/fixed expressions (e.g. “You took the words right out of my mouth”)
• Sitting on the fence/being non-committal
• Showing changes in position/view
• Weighing up different views
• Constructing long or complex arguments (e.g. “There are three main reasons why I am against this”)
• Replying to long or complex arguments (e.g. “In reply to your second point”)
• Turn taking, e.g. interrupting and responding to interruptions
• Asking for clarification
• Clarifying
• Pausing for thought

I think most teachers and students would agree that there is a need for more classroom presentation and practice of language for communicative functions such as apologising, thanking, requesting and offering, but there are also obvious pressures in the opposite direction. These include:

• Teachers having rigid syllabuses that do not allow for adding extra language points
• Doubts about the efficacy of teaching functional language, e.g. about whether teaching students more common and polite ways of disagreeing will ever stop them just saying “I disagree”
• The difficulty of grading and testing functional language
• The ease with which you can usually skip the functional language bit of the textbook, especially as it often has a tenuous connection at best to the rest of the unit and isn’t really recycled in the rest of the book

One good way of tackling most of the issues above is to tie functional language in with other language and skills that are on your syllabus. To give an idea of how it is possible to do so, this article looks at combining functional language with grammar, vocabulary and needs analysis.

Tying Functional Language In With Grammar

A great activity for this is to get them to work together to tell a story with a list of functional language words like “request” and “offer” as practice of reported speech and/or past tenses, e.g. “Yesterday I requested a day off. My boss refused but he offered me a longer lunch break instead…” When they have brought their story to some kind of conclusion, they can brainstorm what people might have actually said to achieve those things and then retell the story with direct speech in it, e.g. “Can I have a day off tomorrow?” “I’m afraid we are far too busy for that. How about a two hour lunch break instead?” etc.

You can do something similar with the Present Simple and reporting verbs by asking students to make true sentences about their partner with “thank” and “complain” such as “You rarely thank shopkeepers”. They can then guess the adverbs of frequency for an average Brit or American, e.g. “British people usually thank shopkeepers” and then brainstorm language that they would need to do those things in English.

For the Present Continuous, you can ask students to mime apologising, refusing an offer etc with gestures, then brainstorm suitable language to do so. This can also be done with pictures of people using body language. Either version is also good for introducing cultural differences in gestures, e.g. that they should be careful which way round their hand is when asking for “two” of something in the UK.

Another activity for Present Continuous is for the teacher to read out a list of language with the same function and whenever the students know what the function is they stick up their hand and say “You are thanking/requesting/complaining”. After labelling the same sections on the worksheets, students can try to make generalisations about the language used with those functions (e.g. “can” and “could” for requests) and then play the same game in pairs.

There is also a nice simple activity that can be used for Present Perfect, Simple Past or future tenses. Each student is given some cards with short functional language responses like “Get well soon”, “Congratulations” and “That’s a shame” written on them. They must try to get exactly that response from their partner by telling them things like “I have broken my leg”, “I passed my test” and “I will have to move to another city”.

Another way of linking between grammar and functions is to simply take one of the meanings of a tense and expand that out to other forms that have the same meaning. For example, “will” for predictions in the book can be linked to “will” for promises and that can then be expanded into other language for promises like “I guarantee that”. The same can be done with:

• “Will for spontaneous decisions” and offers like “I’ll carry that for you”, “Shall I get you a cup of tea?” and “Can I help?”
• Second conditional forms like “If I were you” and “If was in your place” and then “I think you should” etc for advice.
• Indirect questions like “I wondering if…” and then “Could I possibly…?” etc for requests.

With any of these you can also ask students to analyse which of the example sentences that you give them have the more “functional meaning” and which have the more “grammatical meaning”, e.g. which “will” sentences are promises and which are predictions, although note that this is often a difficult distinction to make.

Modal verbs can be tied into functional language by presenting “must be”, “might be” etc for probability/possibility before or after asking them to discuss how likely the out-of-context sentences you give them are to have particular functions, e.g. “’Your coat is on the floor’ must be an order”.

Countable and uncountable nouns and determiners are fairly easy to tie into requests, offers and giving advice, e.g. “I’d make sure you get lots more sleep”.

Tying Functional Language In With Vocabulary

This can easily be done by asking them to use the list of words that you give them in roleplay conversations using the function you want to practice, e.g. asking for advice and giving advice using the love and marriage vocab from the book or on the worksheet with sentences like “My ex keeps phoning me” “You should tell him you’re engaged. It worked for me”.

Combining Functional Language With Needs Analysis

The easiest way of putting together functions and needs analysis is to ask them about what functional language they need, e.g. ranking things like “Making arrangements” and “Inviting” by how often they are likely to need them. They can then brainstorm suitable language for the top choices.

A more indirect way of putting functional language and needs analysis together is presenting opinions language before or after asking them to rank the most useful things to do in class. Another is moving from asking each other questions about language learning to the topic of meeting people and making small talk.

The IELTS Speaking test is taken one-to-one with an examiner and also recorded to be marked. After checking their ID, the examiner asks the candidate personal questions on two or three topics such as education and family. This is followed by a stage where the candidate gives a one- or two-minute mini-presentation on a topic given to them. They are given one minute to prepare and can make notes if they like. After one or two questions about what they said during their presentation, the examiner moves on to more general discussion of related topics.

What Students Need To Do To Get A Good Score In IELTS Speaking

Students will need to properly answer the questions with complex, fluent and accurate use of grammar, vocabulary and functional language. Longer answers should also be well organised, e.g. include linking and signalling expressions.

Probably even more vital than that list of demands is to show that they can really communicate, e.g. by what they say being a real answer to the question and being a reasonable length (rather than a pre-prepared speech or minimal response). Another important way of showing real communication is the way they deal with sticky moments such as not understanding. Things they are likely to need to do to cope with (potential) problems are:

• Asking for clarification, e.g. when the question is ambiguous, and answering questions they might not have fully understood
• Filling the silence, e.g. when pausing for thought
• Having nothing (else) to say, e.g. because the question doesn’t match their situation or they can’t remember the information
• Making sure they have answered or are answering the question
• Getting back on topic, e.g. by asking for a reminder of what the question is
• Correcting themselves

• Signalling the start and end of answers
• Expressing uncertainty and speculating
• Giving examples
• Talking about personal experience
• Generalising
• Giving and justifying opinions
• Comparing and contrasting
• Expressing preferences

Example Classroom Activities

Asking for clarification/Answering questions they might not have understood

• Give students a list of questions that could possibly be ambiguous, e.g. “How many people are there in your family?” Someone asks one of the questions and their partner should confirm something about it (e.g. “Including me?”) before answering, using a different phrase each time.
• In pairs, give students different lists of questions which have very difficult vocabulary in them plus explanations of what those things are supposed to mean. Tell them that the person answering must confirm the meanings of the questions, using a different phrase each time.

Filling silence

• Give students questions that are almost impossible to answer or will at least need thought. They give each other scores based on how little silence they leave and the range of language they use while thinking.
• Give students a task or game where they should speak as long as possible. They give each other scores based on how long they speak, but with points taken off for silence.

Nothing to say

• Similar to the Asking for Clarification game above, students have to find a reason why they can’t answer every question as it is asked, e.g. “Actually, I had no choice” for “Why did you choose that subject?”

Making sure they are answering the question

• Give students difficult to understand questions to ask each other. They should try to answer without asking what they mean, instead asking for clarification during or after their answer. (This is not a good tactic in the exam!)

Getting back on topic

• Students give answers to Speaking Part Two questions without being able to look back at it during those two minutes. Their partner should try to spot when the person speaking has gone off topic, interrupt them, and continue answering the question after using a phrase like “Anyway,…” or “Getting back to the question,…” They can continue interrupting each other until all parts of the question are answered or two minutes is up.

Correcting

• Give students answers to the questions that they are going to be asked that are probably slightly different from what their own would be, e.g. “I was born about 100 kilometres from here” for “Where are you from?” They should answer the questions with the sentences that they have been given, then correct themselves and give an answer that is true, e.g. “What am I talking about 100 km?? It’s more like ten.”

Start and end

• In groups of three, two students compete to be the first to speak when a question is asked, e.g. by launching straight in with a starting phrase like “My first thoughts on that are…” before they’ve even decided what they are going to say. However, if they then pause more than three seconds or go off topic their partner can interrupt them.
• Students try to give long answers to questions without pausing for more than three seconds, including clearly marking the end of what they are saying rather than just stopping or fading out.

Uncertainty/Speculating/Generalising

• Students are given over-generalised sentences such as “Japanese people think…” and must agree on a more accurate version such as “Most Japanese people traditionally thought that…”

Examples

• One student gives examples of something such as “unpleasant things on holiday” or “consequences of global warming” until their partners guess exactly what they are giving examples of. They must use a different phrase each time, i.e. they can’t use the phrase “For example” more than once.
• Students take turns giving examples of something until one of them runs out of ideas.

Experience

• One student talks about different experiences of one thing until their partners guess exactly what they are talking about. Tell them that they must use different phrases such as “One time…” and “When I was younger…” each time.
• One student gives true and made up examples of their personal experience of one thing and their partner should guess which aren’t true.
• Students talk about personal experiences and their partners should guess whether it was their own or someone else’s.

Comparing/Contrasting

• Students must answer all questions by comparing and contrasting, including ones where it wouldn’t be necessary in the exam, e.g. “Pasta, because it’s easier than potatoes” for “What your favourite dish?”