Games for question practice 2

An essential skill in communicating and keeping up a conversation is the ability to ask questions. Students sometimes get lots of chances to answer questions but here are some more ideas for how you can get them to make some questions themselves!

Guess the object

• Divide the class into groups. Each group makes a list of three or four objects. Focus on words recently studied, words for objects in the room or words for objects related to a topic, e.g. home, studying, music, etc.
• One group must guess the objects of another group by asking questions, e.g. Is it made of metal? Can you find one in this room? Is it bigger than this table?
• Set a limit to the number of questions possible for each object (e.g. six to eight questions).
• Give a point to the relevant team depending whether the object is or isn't guessed within the number of questions allowed.
• Guide students by providing the lists of objects yourself or focusing on specific question types to suit your classes.

Question time challenges

This activity can be used as a regular lesson slot or filler to change pace.

• Write out each word (or two) of a question on different slips of paper, for example What's / your / favourite / colour? Make one set per pair or group of students.
• Give out the slips of paper.
• The first pair or group to order them correctly are the winners.

A longer version:

• Take four or five question types recently covered by students.
• Again, split up the words of the questions and write them on slips of paper (or in a jumbled order on a worksheet).
• Challenge small groups or pairs to reorder the questions.
• Run through the questions scoring two points for each correctly ordered question.
• Then challenge students again to think of logical answers to the questions or to use some of the questions in a mini dialogue.