This speaking activity helps students learn and practice different The Task
Step 1
Show your students the Phrasal verbs about sport visual and go through the form, meaning, and accompanying questions to show how the verbs work in practice. If you feel like your students could use some more practice and drilling, see this post where I described 8 different ways of teaching phrasal verbs.
Show your students 3 pictures from the worksheet (without showing the instructions below them. You can either display part of the picture on the board or distribute folded worksheets where the instructions are hidden) and brainstorm together how important sport is for the people in the photos. Think about how often they do sport, why, where, and how they do it, see whether your students have some ideas for a backstory for each person in the picture. Try showing your students how the phrasal verbs about sport you are talking about fit into the description of the pictures; if you hear “go to the gym” signal that “work out” could also be used here and have your students come up with an appropriate sentence.
Now, show your students the instructions and divide them into pairs or groups of 3. Their task is to choose one person from the photos and interview them about the importance of sport in their lives. They should ask 4 questions, write answers, and use at least 3 phrasal verbs about sport. At the end of the activity ask some students to act out the interviews and pay attention to the use of phrasal verbs. Note down possible mistakes to discuss them with your students later. Remember to pay attention to the correct use of phrasal verbs as well.
Personal Experience
This activity is yet another attempt at making learning and using phrasal verbs more engaging and easier for my students who tend to panic in the face of fill in the gap activities and end up never using any phrasal verbs because they don’t know when and how they should do it. My students really enjoyed coming up with different ideas why people in the photos do sport, but they still wouldn’t risk using any phrasal verbs unless I urged them to do so or pointed to the verb they could have used. It took a lot of monitoring and assistance to help them write their interview questions and answers as well. To revise the phrasal verbs once again at the end of the class, with several groups I decided to play charades as these phrasal verbs about sport are quite easy to demonstrate through miming. It was actually a pretty effective activity and worked well even with adult students who might not be naturally eager to mime “bulk up” in class!
Materials
Visual PHRASAL VERBS SPORT
Worksheet PHRASAL VERBS ABOUT SPORT_INTERVIEW
See how to practice phrasal verbs about food, money, relationships and education.
I devoted a lesson to sport, starting with a sport vocabulary game, and then mostly this on phrasal verbs. It was really like pulling teeth, trying to get them to use the phrasal verbs at first, but eventually they started getting it. The discussion points worked very well in particular, I adapted what you said about making them doing agreeing/disagreeing on the different phrasal verbs, and especially when I said “Students should have high marks before they can try out for sport at school” led to lots of great debate. The interviews also went very well! I’ll be adapting more phrasal verb activities like this in the near future. Thanks a lot.
Trying to get students use phrasal verbs is sometimes a real struggle, I know it from experience. Good to hear the class went well and they managed to use some target lg in the end!
Excellent ideas. I also give students 4 or 5 phrasals on slips of paper and get them to come up with a dialogue using the verbs-this forces them to use them. This can be done in writing for lower levels or spontaneously for more advanced groups. Brilliant web site by the way!
I like this idea too. Thanks for commenting!
Excellent ideas. I also give students 4 or 5 phrasals on slips of paper and get them to come up with a dialogue using the verbs-this forces them to use them. This can be done in writing for lower levels or spontaneously for more advanced groups.