Description
This activity is to promote closed repetitive oral practice of food with likes and dislikes. Not just focusing on ‘like’ and ‘don’t like’, but also introducing degrees of preference with real, usable language so that students can then apply that to other subjects where they want to talk about their preferences.
This activity can take from 2 to 4 one-hour sessions to complete, depending on class ability and size.
How to use it
The first conversation worksheet allows for the students to survey up to 9 other classmates. In the first, left-hand column they write the names of all their classmates, or 9 of them, if the class is a lot bigger. In the other columns they ask their friends “Do you like (salad)?” for each of the food items, and then draw the corresponding emoji for the response. So, if their classmate replies with “I can’t stand salad” then they will draw the emoji that represents ‘can’t stand’.
As the teacher, you need to model the target language and activity with the best student first and carefully monitor the class interactions at this stage to make sure students are saying complete sentences and not just one word, nor using their L1, if it’s a same-L1 group. I tell my students that I am listening and I will give a point to them each time I hear an incorrect sentence or a word that’s not in English, with the person that gets least points winning a prize of some sort, whether that be a better mark, or an actual prize like a sweet or extra free time. This usually does the trick.
Once the conversation activity has finished, then you can either use the same worksheet and tell them to write sentences using the information gathered, about their friends’ preferences. I have included two other differentiated worksheets that you can use for lower-level learners or younger children that need scaffolding for writing.
Expansion activity
You can then talk in class about other preferences so that they can see how the language is transferrable. For example, as someone that plays football, then someone that you know doesn’t – “Do you like football?” to elicit responses such as “I love football” and “I can´t stand football”. Or ask about spiders and cats!
