"Things I didn't do in my winter vacation"--an interactive speaking activity

For the first day of the school (Feb. 14), I designed a speaking activity: "Things I didn't do in my winter vacation." There are two reasons why I didn't want to dive into the textbook immediately. First of all, it was the FIRST day! How fun it could be if we start the semester with some serious and formal teaching right away? Both teachers and students need time to adjust to the rigid curricular schedule, so I think engaging students in "small talks" about their winter activities could be a good warm-up. Besides, this activity invites students to share their winter vacation,giving them chances to look back and to use English too.

Right after entering the classroom, I asked the students to put away the textbooks and notebooks they had prepared for the class. Then, out of curiosity, I started to ask them how their winter vacation had been. Some said, "Bad"; some said, "Pretty good"; still others said, "Boring" or "Interesting." Then, I told them three things I did during my vacation. While sharing, I also wrote some keys words on the blackboard. I told the stories in a very entertaining way so as to attract their attention. Then, to their surprise, after finishing, I confessed to them that actually one of the things I mentioned never ever happened at all. They had to guess which story was not true! That caused a little disturbance among them, which was quite amusing to me. Some students took the risk of making the guess. Then I further elicited their reasons for the answer. It ended when one student got the right answer.

The modeling activity took about 10 minutes. Then students were told that they need to share their winter vacation in groups of four. Before the oral sharing, they were required to write down their story by adopting the format I demonstrated on the board. And of course, they had to make up a story for their group to guess.

After ten-minute writing preparation, students were given another 10 minutes to share their stories in groups. To encourage more interaction, I asked them always ask "Why?" to any guess. In the end, they chose a member from their group. These chosen students (10 in total) had to write their stories on the board in key words. After they were done, I went over all the stories and asked everyone to choose a "fake" one from each person and wrote the answer on a piece of paper. In the end, we compared to see who scored the highest.

Suggestion: Time permitting, the representative can share their stories orally.