Time Chain

Age: Teenagers / Adults

Level: Intermediate - Upper Intermediate

Target Structure: Mixed Tenses; Prepositions in / at / on and time expressions last / next.

Duration: 10-20 minutes (depending on group size)

Materials: Talking About Time Grammar Cards

• Have students work in groups of four or five for this activity. Each group should have a set of cards cut up. Specific cards can be extracted in groups to practise a specific target structure.

•    Go over the vocabulary in the cards, making sure students understand the meaning and pronunciation.
•    First student draws a card that has a time expression. Then they should say a sentence using that in context. Next student has to come up with another sentence using the same time expression, but changing other elements in the sentence without repeating any used by previous classmate(s). Then the next student comes up with a new sentence and so on. 

           A:  [draws at Christmas card] My family gets together at Christmas.

           B: Children receive presents at Christmas.

• If time expression is not used correctly, or if student uses repeated elements, they are eliminated. They are also eliminated if they take too long to come up with a sentence.

          C: Children eat delicious food at Christmas.

          Teacher: Sorry, [student B] already used ‘children’ as a subject.