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Leading the blind

1. The students are divided into two equal groups. Each group forms pairs. The centre of the room is filled with 'obstacles' (e.g. chairs), with passages left in between. One member of each pair from group A goes to the opposite end of the room. The remaining partners are then blindfolded (or close their eyes).
2. The 'guides' then give directives to their partners to enable them to walk through the obstacles without touching them. Anyone touching an obstacle is eliminated. Then group B does the same.

Future shock

1. Set the scene by asking the students if they have considered what the world will be like in the year 2250.
2. After you get a few suggestions, explain that they are going to listen to some of the predictions the futurologists have made for the year 2250. They should rank the developments by placing them in decreasing order of desirability, i.e. the developments they most want to see happen should come first.

In the year 2250 you will be able to:
- decide on the racial characteristics, IQ, sex, height, etc. of your baby;
- get specialist knowledge about any subject you want by dialling for the appropriate computer program;
- do all your shopping without stepping out of your home;
- achieve your ideal weight by taking an individual programme of diet pills and liquid food;
- prolong your life for up to fifty years if you go to special clinics for two weeks a year after forty;
- fly across the world in two hours in a low orbit spacecraft;
- decide not to work at all;
- get robots to do all the routine jobs in your home;
- take holidays in space;
- live in small communities rather than big cities, which will become more and more dangerous.
3. When the students have completed their individual task, ask them to share their answers with a small group of three or four.
4. When everyone has given their views, the group should decide on three developments they think the world would be better without.

Taps

1. Write on the board and work out the structure: You must have tapped on smth.
2. Ask students to turn back, tap something with your hand or a stick and ask the student to guess what it was.
3. Students guess using the structure: You must have tapped on the desk.

Miming

1. Write a list of vocabulary on the board which you feel should be reviewed.
2. Students take it in turns to mime one of the words so that the class can identify the word that he or she has chosen.

Upside-down statements

1. Student chooses a statement, such as Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today, and reverses its meaning into Put off till tomorrow what you can't do today. Then he or she tries to prove this upside-down statement by giving arguments in its defence.
2. The list of possible upside-down statements may include: Laugh shortens life. Dishonesty is the best policy. The dog is a man’s enemy. Students like examinations.

Ideal day

1. Ask the students to write a description of an ideal day. They can choose freely the places they would like to be in, their activities and the company they would like to have.
2. Other topics to write about are: an ideal flat, holiday, friend.

Have I changed?

1. Ask students to consider how their personalities, or personal habits, have changed over the last ten years (or 20 years, for mature students).
2. Each should write down some things they used to be, or enjoy, or do, and contrast them with the present: I used to do a lot of sport - but today I only play tennis. I used to be much more irritable than I am now.

Eat, smile, dance!

1. Write up on the board: EAT, SMILE, DANCE. Ask the students if they always eat, smile and dance in the same way. Does it depend on who they are with…?
2. Get the students to write between 5 and 10 questions (depending on the size of the class), each addressed to named people in the group asking how they smile, eat or dance in particular situations, e.g.: 'Mark, how do you smile at your boss?', 'Maria, how do you eat when your grandfather comes to lunch?'
3. The students now fire their questions at each other across the room, with you at the board building up a list of the adverbs used in the replies.
4. Ask a student to come out and give orders to the others using the 3 verbs and the adverbs from the board, e.g.: 'Juana, eat greedily!', 'Akiro, smile sweetly!'