190 Part III: Teaching Skills Classes
I find that if you prompt students with some secondary questions, and give
them a minute to think about it and make notes, you hear far fewer ‘ums’ and
‘errs’.
Other possibilities for follow-up activities are:
✓ Role-plays: Students can create an imaginary dialogue between charac-
ters in the previous or related activity and act it out.
✓ Interview questions: In pairs or groups students can agree a set of ten
questions they’d use to interview a key character.
✓ Compare and contrast: Students discuss the similarities and differences
between their culture and that of their partner, or that of an English-
speaking country in relation to the theme of the lesson.
✓ Debates: Assign different groups to represent each side of the argument.
In My Opinion – Agreeing, Disagreeing and Negotiating
The problem with extended speaking activities is that everyone has their
own opinion and at times disagreements arise. No problem! Learning to
express your opinions in a foreign language is a pretty important skill. In fact
if you don’t teach the students how to do this, they may just clam up, resort
to their mother tongue or, worse still, shout everyone else down using bad
grammar.
Expressing an opinion
The way we differentiate between a fact and an opinion is by tacking on little
expressions that alert the hearer to what’s coming. You say things like:
✓ I (don’t) think.
✓ I (don’t) believe.
✓ In my opinion.
✓ How about this.
These expressions are quite straightforward to teach because they go neatly
on the front of a sentence and don’t often change tense.
