Conversation Cards - Let's talk - Use (of) English

“Let’s talk and Use (of) English” is a collection of 48 cards whose aim is to combine Use of English tasks with speaking activities in a slightly gamified context.

The cards are divided into 8 groups of cards that include tasks and questions focused on one film genre. The genres included are: fantasy, horror, crime story, romantic comedy, sci-fi, medical drama, action film and documentary. The tasks are either about these genres or are placed in their context.

Each card within each genre group contains a different Use of English task. There are 6 types of tasks: paraphrases with a key word, mini dialogues (where students need to choose an answer with a missing line), duos - pairs of sentences to complete with the same word (either in a different meaning or in a different collocation), word formation, sentence building (where students add grammar to a group of words, changing their form and/or adding other necessary words so that the sentence is logical and grammatically correct), and synonyms (where students choose the correct synonym for a fragment in bold).

The other side of each card contains a photo relating in some way to the card’s genre and a chart with the names of all the genres in the top row and all the task types in a column. The students can see the numbers of the cards within each genre and each task type, with the number of the card they are currently on highlighted in the chart.

The chart allows the students and/or the teacher to plan how they want to use the cards. They may concentrate on one genre and try to “collect” all the cards within each one, or perhaps they want to focus on completing one task type across all the genres. The number of the cards and tasks allows for multiple lessons so it might be a good idea to note down which cards have been used so that the students/teacher can easily pick up where they left off.

Under the Use of English task on each card, there are 5 questions for the students to answer in pairs or small groups. The questions include language from the Use of English tasks, which allows the students to practise the structures and/or vocabulary yet again. The instruction for the Use of English tasks asks the students to cover the questions while doing the tasks so as not to see some of the answers that might be included in the questions.

Author: EWA TOREBKO