The Richmond Vodcast Series

Everyday Activities
Classroom Activities
Language focus

VOCABULARY/FUNCTION: everyday activities/telling the time

GRAMMAR: present simple question forms/frequency adverbs
SKILLS PRACTICE: speaking

Before the activity

Students watch Everyday Activities (Units 5 and 6) Vodcast at home or in the classroom. Each
student will need one card from the photocopiable worksheet, or perhaps two cards each if the
class is small. If there are more than 14 students in the class, duplicate cards as necessary. Prior
to the activity, you may like to revise telling the time, as covered in Unit 5 of the main course.
You could link this to the video: What time does Tom get up?

Procedure
1 Elicit from the class what they can remember from the video. What did Tom and Alex talk about?
How are Alex and Tom different? (Tom gets up late, goes to bed late, and is often late for things.
Alex gets up and goes to bed early, and isnt usually late for things.)
2 Give each student a card. The students take it in turns to ask you the question on their card.
Aim to make your replies entertaining, with some extra information. This will act as a model for
the students when they come to do the main activity. If it seems necessary, revise the question
forms, drawing attention to the position of the adverb of frequency: Do you always answer your
phone? What time do you usually have lunch? You could also write sentences on the board in the
wrong order and elicit the correct version. For example: get up? / What time / usually / you / do
(What time do you usually get up?)
3 The students stand and circulate, asking and answering the questions on their cards. Monitor
to assist where necessary, and encourage exchange of more than the minimum information
required to answer the questions.
4 After the students have asked their questions a suitable number of times, collect and
redistribute the cards to repeat the activity as many times as required.
5 Feed back the students responses to the activity. Do they now feel confident using this
language? Who found somebody who does exactly the same thing as they do?

Homework extension activity

Students write a short composition about their
typical day. They should try to use always, usually,
often, sometimes and never at least once. Perhaps
tell students not to write their names on their
compositions, and to bring them to the next
lesson. Then fix the compositions to the walls of
the classroom. Students circulate in pairs, and try to
guess who is the author of each piece.

Richmond, 2013
 The Richmond Vodcast Series

Do you always answer your What time do you usually have

phone? lunch?

Do you often watch TV in the Do you often wake up very

morning? early in the morning?

Do you usually get up late on What time do you usually have

Saturdays and Sundays? breakfast?

Do you usually have a bath or What time do you usually go to

a shower? bed?

What do you usually have for Do you often read a

breakfast? newspaper?

Do you usually go to bed late Do you sometimes have

or early? breakfast in bed?

What time do you usually get Do you always have coffee in

up? the morning?

Richmond, 2013