< SENSATIONAL BEGINNINGS
The aim of this activity is to provide some practice in the use of Reported Speech patters, while at the same time having some fun.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being famous. Ask students if they would like to be famous and why/why not. Explain what a press conference is. Then ask one student to impersonate someone rich and famous. Let the other students guess who s/he is and interview him/her.
Pretend that you can not hear very well and ask students to report their questions and answers: A asks a question, B reports it, C reports the answer and so on. Here is a list of some characters it would be nice to interview, as well as some sample questions: Michael Jackson (When will you have your next operation?); Madonna (Are you really a material girl?); Claudia Schiffer (Do you eat a lot of ice-cream?)
A game about numbers, and in particular number 7 (which makes the activity a bit of a tongue-twister and therefore still funnier.) The object is to revise the way numbers are written and read -in a challenging way, highlighting some common problems such as the difference between the minimal pair /i/ and /i:/ and when and when not use "and" etc.
A) Write the number 7 on the board. Ask a student to read it out. Then write the number 17. And then 70. Always combine the digits 0, 1 and 7 in any order you want (i.e. 77; 707; 717; 7,070; 77,717; 1,700,717 etc.) You can carry on until you reach 777,777,777.
Whenever a student makes a mistake, s/he must give the teacher a personal object (a pen, book etc.) The next student should then give the correct answer.
B) When the first part of the game is over,students can recover their belongings by correctly answering a question related to numbers (i.e. How many eggs are there in a dozen eggs? or How many fingers have you got?)
C) Finally, choose five of the numbers on the board and ask the class to write them down in words.
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