Inventions conversation questions
Invention expressions and idioms
You can introduce these related invention idioms and expressions to your students once they have completed discussing the inventions conversation questions.
When a person reinvents the wheel, they are wasting their time by doing something that has already been done, creating a thing that already exists, or starting to do something from the very beginning when there is no need to.
The expression “necessity is the mother of invention” means that during difficult times people create new things in order to make life easier.
To say that somebody “didn’t invent gunpowder” is to say that they did not do anything of major importance in their lifetime.
Something that is cutting edge is the latest in technology.
Further inventions activities
Here are some more ideas for activities you can do to follow up on the inventions discussion questions.
A fun activity which you can turn into a group game or race is to get student to make a list of inventions for each letter of the alphabet. Ask tour class to write the letters A through to Z on a sheet of paper and see if they can think of and write an invention that starts with each letter.
For more writing tasks have a look at the invention writing activity worksheets. This page has several ideas for writing about this topic.
Finally, there is also the fun inventions ESL game for intermediate-level students and above. In this card game, players must guess the dates that certain things were first created.
