Mime it!

Objective & content

By the end, A1- pupils can ask and answer about an action happening now: Are you dancing? Yes, I am! The bank is 5 projectable slides: a how-to slide with an example, then 4 slides of six pictured actions each (every day, sport, music and art, free time), 24 actions in all.

Pedagogical guide

Use it as a five-minute warm-up that gets the class moving. The mime uses no words, so every pupil can take a turn, and the guessers practise the question Are you ...ing? again and again with a real reason to ask it. The pictures and their labels stay on the screen, so pupils can find the words they need. The slides are interchangeable: one per lesson.

Suggested procedure

1. (1 min) Show a slide and say the six actions together.
2. (3 min) A pupil chooses one action secretly and mimes it. The class guesses with Are you ...ing?; the pupil answers Yes, I am! or No, I'm not! The first right guess mimes next.
3. (1 min) Play once more with two actions, one after the other.

Adaptations

• [S] The teacher mimes first, and pupils only answer Yes or No until they are ready to ask.
• [A] Pupils mime an action that is not on the slide, or play in teams with a point for each right guess in one minute.

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen and a little space at the front; the bank is a 16:9 PDF, one slide per page, with no printing needed. Assumes the verb be and the -ing form.