Sometimes questions are more important than answers. Nancy Willard
I sometimes feel one of the most ignored area in my classroom is practising asking questions. When I started teaching English, there was a trendy activity to ask questions. That was Find the question for the underlined answer which was very mechanical and boring and while checking my blog posts I realised I never wrote about asking questions in a fun way so I’ll list here some activities, games I use in class.
What’s the Question?
Level: Any Level
Purpose: review question forms
Divide the class into two teams.
Tell students they will find the correct question for the answer.
Have two players come to the front (one from each team)
Have a buzzer or a bell or they can just touch the desk if you don’t have the formers.
Read an answer to a question and say, ‘What’s the question?’ The fastest player to find a correct question wins a point
Dice Questions
level: any
materials: a pair of dice
Elicit 6 topics you studied, such as:
1. family
2. school
3. food
4. music
5. books
6. inventions
Elicit the question words
1. what
2. where
3. when
4. why
5. who
6. how
Put students in 2 teams and tell if their team can form a correct question they will gain 2 points.
Throw the dice.
Students should ask a question according to the numbers on the dice so the dice say 2;4. The student will choose the topic from the first group in the list above number 2 is school and the question word will be number 4, in this case it is why.
20 questions
This one is a classic but can be a fun way to practice asking questions and have a look at Larry Ferlazzo’s post using it with an online treat.
DO YOU KNOW YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Level: any
Aim: to revise asking questions
Materials: pen and paper
Send 2 good friends out
In class decide what questions to ask such as
what is your friend’s favourite colour?
Who is your friend’s favourite super hero?
Call one of the students back and ask the questions, take notes. send him back and call the other one in and ask the same questions.
Call both of them and ask the questions to them to get their answers, compare with the friend’s answer.
The winner is the one who has more correct answers.
