Low-Intermediate to Advanced

Speaking, listening (primary focus); writing (secondary focus)

Students will practice using phrasal verbs through a dialogue practice and a speaking activity.

• Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk, computer with speakers, printer  
• Students: pencils or pens, notebooks or writing paper.

This week’s Teacher’s Corner is divided into three parts: a listening dialogue, a review activity, and a speaking activity. The listening dialogue will provide students vocabulary and sentence structure that they can use in the speaking activity. Before using the activity in class:

1. Read through all the materials carefully.
2. Print out the Listening Activity worksheet in Appendix 1. Make enough copies so that each student in class has a worksheet.
3. Print out (or have a digital copy of) the House Party worksheet answer key in Appendix 1 to check answers with the students.
4. Download the House Party Listening audio file included with this week’s materials. Listen to the audio before class.
   • If you do not have a computer to play the audio, you can read the dialogue to students. The listening transcript is in Appendix 4.
5. Print out the House Party worksheet in Appendix 3. Make enough copies so that each student in class has a worksheet.

Part 1 – Listening Activity

1.     Give each student a copy of the Listening Activity worksheet in Appendix 1.

2.     Next, read the directions with the students. The students will listen to the audio and fill in the blanks with the words they hear.

3.     Play the audio and have students fill in the blanks on the worksheet.

• For lower-level classes you may want to play the audio twice.

4.     Review the answers as a group. Have the students check their answers, or they can change papers with a partner and check their partner’s answers.

5.     Play the audio again so students can follow along with the corrected answers on their worksheets.

Part 2 – Phrasal Verbs Charades

1.     Review the phrasal verbs used in the listening activity by playing charades.

• Note: Charades is a guessing game. In charades, one student silently acts out a word or phrase and the rest of the class must guess the word of phrase.

2.     Act out one of the sentences from the listening activity and have the students guess which sentence is it is.

3.     Have students come to the front of the class and act out another sentence from the listening activity.

• For more competitive classes, award points to students who are the first to guess correctly. The student with the most points at the end wins.

Part 3 – House Party!

1.     Begin this part of the activity by having the students create their own sentences on a sheet of paper. Encourage the students to use the pattern used in the listening activity:

• (phrasal verb)  the  (noun)  in/at/on the (location).
• For example: Clean up the pizza boxes in the living room!

2.     Next, give each student a copy of the House Party! worksheet in Appendix 3. Read the directions on the worksheet as a class.

3.     Have the students form pairs. Each pair will have student A and student B.

• Note: This activity will be done in two rounds. During the first round, student A will read his/her sentences and student B will write them down on his/her worksheet. Then the pairs will switch roles.

4.     Next, have student A start a dialogue with student B. Encourage the students to use stress and intonation like they heard in the dialogue. Student A needs to instruct student B on how to clean up the house. Student B should write down on the worksheet the instructions he/she hears from student A.

5.     After they have finished sharing sentences and taking notes, have the students switch roles. Student B will now call student A and give instructions.

Optional Activities

1. If time permits, have the pairs come to the front of the class and act out their dialogue.
2. Another optional activity is charades. Now that students have had a chance to work with the phrasal verbs, have individual students come to the front of the class and act out the sentences they wrote for the House Party! activity.