What year did you.................................?

Go to this class for the first time Move to your current house Start driving Start learning English Start swimming Move away from home Start staying on your own at home Go abroad for the first time Buy your first computer/mobile telephone

.....add other activities if you like

Questionnaire 1

Name _________________________________________ Date of birth

Activity Year Age

Questionnaire 2

Name _________________________________________ Date of birth

Activity Year Age

Questionnaire 3

Name _________________________________________ Date of birth

Activity Year Age

Now: report your answers to other classmates. For example, James started his school in

1992, when he was five years old.

September 2013 www.skillsworkshop.org

E1-E2 ESOL (speaking, listening, past tense, numeracy) Kindly contributed by Maria Veselova-Smith

http://www.skillsworkshop.org

Teachers notes

This activity encourages students:

- To communicate with each other while moving around the classroom,

- To revise Past Simple (questions and answers),

- To practise basic numeracy (subtraction).

If students share common interests or profession, it might be easier for them to ask more

various questions. Teacher can easily control the time spent on the activity by asking

more/less questionnaires to fill in. After this phase, students tell received information to a

third party.

Note: Some students might not be conformable to reveal personal information; therefore

teacher can ensure that students are allowed make up the answers.

Before the task is started, teacher can discuss various ways to carry out subtractions. For

example, by using a number line (Figure 1), bundles (Figure 2). Important point here is to

make the operation meaningful for students, rather than to ask them to remember a

traditional algorithm.

Figure 1 Subtraction using a number line 86 59 = ? (Drawing not to scale)

Figure 2 Subtraction Using Sticks: Modelling 8659=? (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001)

Begin with 8 bundles of 10 sticks

along with 6 individual sticks.

Because you cannot take away 9

individual sticks, open one

bundle, creating 7 bundles of 10

sticks and 16 individual sticks.

Take away 5 of the bundles

(corresponding to subtracting 50),

and take away 9 individual sticks

(corresponding to subtracting 9).

The number of remaining sticks

2 bundles and 7 individual sticks,

or 27is the answer.

(Kilpatrick, Swafford, &Findel,

2001, p. 128)

86 80 77 27

-6 -3 -50

September 2013 www.skillsworkshop.org

E1-E2 ESOL (speaking, listening, past tense, numeracy) Kindly contributed by Maria Veselova-Smith

http://www.skillsworkshop.org