Have you ever...?

Objective & content

By the end, A2+ pupils can ask and answer about life experiences with the present perfect and ever / never, then give details in the past simple: Have you ever ridden a horse? Yes, I have. I rode a horse last summer. The bank is 7 projectable slides: a how-to slide, then 6 slides of six experiences each (food and parties, travel, animals, nature and adventure, music and fun, everyday mishaps), each with a picture and a row of useful phrases.

Pedagogical guide

Use it as a five-minute warm-up that gets pupils moving and asking real questions. Finding a different classmate for each experience means pupils ask the same question many times, which fixes the form, and the answers are genuinely new information. The follow-up When? Where? shows the switch from the present perfect (the experience) to the past simple (the details). The slides are interchangeable: show one per lesson.

Suggested procedure

1. (1 min) Show the how-to slide and read the example together.
2. (3 min) Show one slide and read the six questions together. Pupils walk round and find a different person for each one.
3. (1 min) Pupils tell the class what they found out: Lina has held a spider, but Tom has never seen a shark.

Adaptations

• [S] Pupils ask one partner the six questions and only answer Yes, I have. / No, I haven't.
• [A] Pupils ask one more question for each yes (When? Where? Was it fun?), or write five sentences about the class (Nobody has ever ...).

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen; the bank is a 16:9 PDF, one slide per page, with no printing needed. Assumes the past participles of common verbs and the past simple.