Evening News
Minefields

Level Aims Grammar Time Materials
junior high school second- to third- year Consolidation of passive voice through speaking & writing. passive voice 10 mins Copies of 5 variations of the w/sheet, pictures.

This is an 'Information Gap' activity. Each student has a piece of information which other students need. Students must find others who have the information they lack and obtain it from them via a series of questions in English. Prepare in the following manner. Make 4 copies of the worksheet and 'white-out' three of the four answers on each, leaving a single, different answer. This provides you with 4 different worksheets, of which you can make sufficient copies to give one to each student in the class. Thus, in a class of 40 students, you'll need to copy each of the 4 worksheets 10 times.

Tell the students that they are reporters for the 'Evening News' newspaper, and their editor has given them a murder to cover for the next edition. They are going to make a 'Front Page', so they'll have to find witnesses (conveniently each other) and ask them questions about the crime. As they gather information, they can fill in the blanks on their worksheet. They will have to 'make up' some information by conjugating the verbs in brackets to the passive voice. When they have filled in all the blanks, there is still one final task they must perform to complete their 'Front Page'; They need to obtain a picture of the victim (one is provided below, but use any you like and alter the worksheet accordingly) by asking the ALT (IN ENGLISH). Don't tell them this requirement, it's written on their worksheet.

See Criminal for a similar idea with worksheets.

Teaching Tip

Your school probably has a video which accompanies the textbook. Turn the sound off, and have the S/s dub the dialogue. In a similar vein, being taped can prove very motivating for S/s doing dialogues/skits based on the text (create altered, zany dialogues for them to use), especially for senior high school. Your school may also have a video club, the members of which would probably love to make several 2 minute movies featuring your students. Don't be afraid of asking to use these tools.

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