Pair work – missing things

This is a great pair work speaking activity for all levels. The vocabulary required has been kept very simple. All the requisite words are either basic food, animals, or clothing.

Ask the students to sit opposite each other or in a way that they can’t see each other’s worksheet. Sometimes you can stand a book up between the students or even a bag. It doesn’t really matter, just as long as they can’t copy and have to rely on speaking.

The object of the activity is for students to find what is missing in their blank boxes. For example, student A has a blank box at square C – 1. Student A will simply ask student B “what is in square C-1”. Student B will reply “In square C-1 there is a chicken leg”.

Once the student knows what is in the box they must draw that picture. It is best for the students to take turns asking one question each before swapping again. You may find that some learners are not able or confident enough to try drawing the pictures. In this case, simply let them write the words down instead.

If the students don’t know one of the words they can either try to describe it, ask the teacher, or answer that they don’t know what it is and move on to the next square. You could of course teach any difficult words before doing the activity. Also consider doing some easy illustration examples on the board. In past classes I’ve had students spend minutes on each picture, stress that they don’t need to paint the Mona Lisa.

You of course need both the handouts to carry out this activity which you can download or print below.