Speaking Activity: Making Plans for the Weekend (be going to)

Simple Speaking Activity for Invitations & Making Plans (ESL)

Target Language: be going to (future plans), have to, asking questions

ESL Level: lower-intermediate

Class Time: 40 minutes

Summary: Students design an activity and then invite other classmates to join.

Worksheet Download: making-plans-activity-esl.docx


This speaking activity should be done after teaching be going to for future plans (e.g. I'm going to watch a movie).

Making Plans Worksheet Preview

(note: the link to download the worksheet is above)

making plans with other students

Activity Execution

  1. Put the students in pairs.
  2. Distribute the worksheet (preview below).
  3. Tell them they are going to design an activity for this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evening. Explain that later they will ask their classmates to join the activity. Have them fill in the activity, location, and details. (I limited it to evenings so that their schedule would eventually become full, and therefore they'd have to practice language for refusing an invitation).
  4. Have them add their own activity to their schedule in Part 1.B.
  5. Role-play the dialogue with a student in front of the class. To make it clear that they have to choose whether to join or not. Role-play it once with a student who agrees (i.e. someone who likes romantic movies), and once with someone who disagrees.
  6. Tell the students that they are now going to mix with their classmates and make invitations. If they agree to go to an event, they should add it to their schedule. Afterwards, if someone invites them to an event on the same day, they have to refuse because they already have plans. Also, when inviting others, if they agree to join, the inviter should add the guest to the 'guests' section in Part A.
  7. Let them mix and do it. The pairs don't have to stay together; they can split up and invite people by themselves.
  8. At the end, ask each pair who is going to attend their event to see which event was most popular.

Note: For simplification, you can change 'I'm afraid I have to...' to 'Sorry, I have to ...' on the worksheet.

I hope your students enjoy this speaking activity.

- Matthew Barton / Creator of Englishcurrent.com

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