Picture difference tasks

In pairs, one student is given picture A, one picture B. Without looking at the other picture, they have to find the differences (i.e. by describing the pictures to each other).

Group planning tasks

The first example is 'planning a holiday'. Collect together a number of advertisements or brochures advertising a holiday. Explain to the students that they can all go on holiday together, but they must all agree on where they want to go.

Divide the students into groups of three and give each group a selection of this material. Their task is to plan a holiday for the whole group (within a fixed budget per person).

Allow them a good amount of time to read and select a holiday and then to prepare a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class that they should choose this holiday. When they are ready, each group makes their presentation and the class discusses and chooses a holiday.

List sequencing tasks (also known as 'Ranking tasks’)

Prepare a list of items that learners can discuss and place in a particular order according to their opinions, e.g.

• What's the most useful invention?

• What's the best improvement that could be made to our town?

• What are the worst programmes on TV?

• Who's the most important person of the last 100 years?

• What are the qualities of a good language course?

Pyramid discussion

A Pyramid discussion is an organizational technique that works particularly well with simple problem-based discussions and especially with item-selection tasks, e.g. 'What are the four most useful things to have with you if you are shipwrecked on a desert island?', or list sequencing tasks, e.g. 'Put these items in order of importance'. Here's how to do it:

1. Introduce the problem, probably using a list on the board or on handouts.

2. Start with individual reflection - learners each decide what they think might be a solution.

3. Combine individuals to make pairs, who now discuss and come to an agreement or compromise. If you demand that there must be an agreed compromise solution before you move on to the next stage, it will significantly help to focus the task.

4. Combine the pairs to make fours; again, they need to reach an agreement.

5. Join each four with another four or - in a smaller class - with all the others.

6. When the whole class comes together, see if you can to reach one class solution.

1. What's the point of doing a discussion in this way? Well, most importantly, the technique gives students time to practice speaking in smaller groups before facing the whole class. Even the weaker speakers tend to find their confidence grows as the activity proceeds and they are able to rehearse and repeat arguments that they have already tested on others. It also tends to lead to a much more exciting and well argued whole-class discussion.

Role Play, Real Play and Simulation

The term "Role play" is generally used to refer to a wide range of practice and communicative activities. Some of the controlled or guided dialogues, especially cued dialogues, might be considered as an introduction to role play These prepare learners to take part in role play activities which require greater spontaneity and fluency.

Role play activities vary in the degree of control over how learners act and speak. The interaction may be controlled by cues or guided by a description of a situation and a task to be accomplished. The result may be very predictable or an open-ended scenario may allow learners to negotiate the outcome in the course of the activity.

Role play requires learners to project themselves into an imaginary situation where they may play themselves or where they may be required to play a character role. In some instances this is prescribed in detail and at other times learners are free to create the role, which inevitably leads to greater involvement in the activity. A situation or scenario may be realistic (e.g. coping with a problem in a campsite, etc.). It may also be unrealistic for learners (You are a detective, explorer, etc.) or appeal to their sense of fantasy (You are a caterpillar about to become a butterfly ....). All kinds of role play are useful and it is essentially a question of maintaining a balance between realistic activities and other imaginative and interesting situations which provide motivation, enjoyment and satisfaction in the here-and-now of the classroom.

Role play is not simply a rehearsal for future real-life transactions. It provides learners with opportunities to practise correct and appropriate use of a wide range of functions, notions and structures in a variety of contexts

The ultimate aim of role play, as of all speaking activities, is to involve learners in fluent and creative expression in a way which can and should be enjoyable. This, as always, requires a supportive classroom atmosphere where learners are not afraid to 'have a go' and where the role play mask may provide some relief, particularly for shyer learners, from the intensity of T'-centred activities.

Learners who are unfamiliar with pair or group work will need time to get used to these activities. It is best to start with short, controlled or guided role plays and to supply detailed guidelines on how to proceed.

Pre-role play discussion is a valuable activity at all levels as learners are communicating about real and immediate needs. They must, of course, gradually be given the means to conduct this discussion in the target language and encouraged to do so as much as possible in both the pre-play and post-play stages.

Learners who are familiar with role play may be introduced to simulation which is a more complex activity, usually requiring greater preparation and organisation and more time to carry out. Simulations may involve learners in imaginative activities, for example how to survive on a desert island in the face of various dangers and difficulties, or, more realistically, in accomplishing a task such as preparing the front page of a newspaper, a publicity campaign, or a radio/TV programme. Participants may also be placed in a situation of conflict where teams take on roles to defend or oppose a proposal before a decision is taken, e.g. whether or not to build a nuclear power plant, to abolish beauty contests, and so on.

Simulations have rules which constrain participants, requiring them to act in a realistic manner in keeping with their roles.⁴ While they are often less flexible than role play activities and less convenient because they usually require a lot of time.

Simulations usually involve a more complex structure and often larger groups (of 6 to 20) where the entire group is working through an imaginary situation as a social unit, the object of which is to solve some specific prob­lem. A common genre of simulation game specifies that all members of the group are shipwrecked on a "desert island." Each person has been assigned an occupation (doctor, carpenter, garbage collector, etc.) and perhaps some other mitigating characteristics (a physical disability, an ex-convict, thief, businessman etc.) Only a specified subset of the group can survive on the remaining food supply so the group must decide who will live and who will die.

Both role play and simulation require careful planning-to ensure that they run smoothly, but the greater proportion of time would be spent on the actual performance and post-play analysis, based on recordings or observers' comments where possible.

A powerful variation on role-play is Real-play. In this case, situations and one or more of the characters are drawn not from cards, but from a participant's own life and world⁵. Typically, one of the learners plays him/herself. This person explains a context (e.g. from his/her work life) to other learners, and then together they recreate the situation in class. The real-play technique allows learners to practise language they need in their own life. It is particularly useful for business and professional people.

Here is a brief description of a sample real-play activity:

In a Business English class, a receptionist at a company said that she found it difficult to deal with foreign visitors who wanted to ask a question rather than just be directed to a person's office. She described a recent time when this had happened and then real-played this with another student (who played her, while she played the part of the visitor). She found it helpful to watch her colleague playing her own role, as he did some things quite differently from her and used some interesting expressions. The teacher was also able to suggest some ideas and language. Then they repeated the real-play (with her playing herself). She said afterwards that she felt a little more confident about such situations.