Now this is what I like to see (and hear) in an ESL class: students working and talking and navigating the language together.
We’ve been practicing the future tense, specifically the “going to” form. In this activity, I asked the students to answer on an index card these three questions: What are you going to do after class? tonight? and this weekend? They then gave me their cards, which I mixed up and redistributed to all the students.
With a card in hand, each student had to circulate and ask the same questions to find the person who wrote the card. Then, because these guys and gals are advanced, I made them take it a step further with a little interview to get more details about the person’s plans. Then they wrote up the information and presented a little “portrait” of their interviewee to the class.
I hope this activity hit on a few cylinders: writing and speaking about the future in natural, casual English (I find it so stilted and unnatural when students speak only with “will” in the future tense. How many native English speakers do that?). I also hope the extension of the exercise gave them some awareness and practice with the concept of details.
But, most of all, I’m just so glad it got them talking.