Tell Me About It

Purpose: To help intermediate or advanced level students practice wh- questions in the context of a reading lesson.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes.

Materials: Variety of articles from the newspaper or stories from reading text; enough copies for students; a picture to go along with the story is an added bonus.

Preparation: Look for human interest stories in the paper or stories from a series like True Stories in the News. You might want to choose one to do with the whole group first.

Procedure:

1. Talk about the title, look at the picture, if there is one, predict what might be in the article, then read the story together as a group. You may need to spend some time on unfamiliar vocabulary. Encourage students to figure it out from context whenever possible.
2. Have students work in pairs to answer what, where, why, when, who, how?
3. Ask students to share their answers.
4. Assign each small group a different story. Each group must summarize their story orally for the group by answering the wh- questions.
5. As follow-up, have them write the summaries.