Video transcript - Three ways to present discussion questions to add interest
One thing I've noticed over the years is that sometimes it's not the activity itself that makes the difference - it's how you set it up.
You can take exactly the same discussion question and put it on a worksheet and learners will do it perfectly happily. But present it in a slightly different way and suddenly there's a bit of energy in the room. People are curious. They're smiling. They want to know what's coming next.
Now, none of the ideas I'm going to show you in this video are revolutionary. In fact, some of them are very old-fashioned. But they all have one thing in common: they make use of the physical classroom and I think that's worth talking about because so many of us got used to teaching online during Covid and, even now, I sometimes walk into classrooms and see teachers using them as if they're Zoom rooms with chairs.
So here are three really simple ways to bring a bit more life into your lessons.
The first one is the Lucky Dip Box.
Let's imagine you've got a set of discussion questions. You could put them on a worksheet. You could put them on a PowerPoint slide. All good.
But how about putting them on little slips of paper, folding them up and putting them in a box. Let learners take turns pulling one out.
That's it. That's the entire idea. The activity hasn't changed at all. The language focus hasn't changed. The questions haven't changed. You've just added a tiny bit of suspense.
People want to know what they're going to get. Will it be an easy one? A difficult one? A funny one? It's a bit like opening a Christmas cracker. There's something surprisingly engaging about not knowing what's inside.
I've used this with discussion questions, roleplays, grammar revision and even pronunciation activities. And for the cost of a few scraps of paper and a bit of extra time preparing, it works really well.
The second idea is one I particularly enjoy. Before the lesson starts, hide things around the room. A good place is to tape something underneath chairs. This could be questions, vocabulary cards or roleplay cards.
Then at some point during the lesson tell learners there are hidden messages under their chairs You'd be amazed how invested people become.
Now, if you're teaching six-year-olds this won't surprise you. But in a lot of adult classrooms, people also respond to a bit of play. They might pretend they're too sophisticated for this sort of thing …and then they'll immediately start looking under their chairs.
Again, nothing magical has happened here. You've simply turned the start of the activity into a little treasure hunt.
My third idea is to get things off the board and onto the walls. Instead of putting everything in one place, spread it around the room. Put discussion questions on different walls. Put pictures around the classroom. Put short texts in different locations. Then get learners moving around in pairs or small groups.
One of the things I like about this is that it changes the pace of the lesson. People stand up and stretch their legs. They bump into different classmates and the classroom starts to feel a bit more dynamic.
So what's the big takeaway from all of this? It's that the activity often isn't the issue. We spend a lot of time as teachers looking for new activities but sometimes we don't actually need a new activity at all, we just need a new way of presenting it.
A physical classroom gives us opportunities for movement, surprise and curiosity. And those things are often enough to make an activity feel fresh.
So next time you're about to hand out a worksheet, just pause for a moment and ask yourself: "Could I do this in a more interesting way?"
You might find that a tiny change makes a much bigger difference than you'd expect.
