By Richard Gresswell from ELTbites
I use grids like this in my lesson, drawn to the board and copied by students on paper. Grids can be useful in structuring question and answer activities.
The lesson below is one I’ve used many times with beginner and basic literacy classes.
| Information | Question?? | Shaheen | Fatima | Yousuf | Birhane |
| Address | |||||
| Postcode | e.g. What’s your postcode? | LS3 1AA | |||
|
Tel. Number |
- First of all, on the board draw a grid – An example is shown above, learners copy the table and fill in the names for the people in their group of four. If they are not sure how to spell the names they could ask each other – ‘Can you spell that please?’
- Next, elicit or give question for each information item i.e. address, postcode, tel. number in this case.
- Then, you can work on pronunciation of the question forms e.g. focussing on word stress e.g. What’s your postcode?
- After that, learners work in small groups asking each other and answering the questions and recording the answers in the grid, feedback to class.
- Later – Of course this simple Q and A activity can be used at any level for any topic, but I have found it really useful with entry levels for focusing on question forms, listening to answers and spelling out loud.
