Materials: Guidelines

The five difficulty ratings are in descending order of difficulty. So students may be able to work out what they mean for themselves, but be prepared to explain / point them in the right direction.

Once the rating phrases are clearly understood, students should decide for themselves how difficult they consider the various items. Once they have decided, put them into groups of four or five to compare their answers and debate any they disagree about. I find this technique, of getting students to commit themselves to opinions in writing, before they discuss their ideas, is a good way of creating a higher level of contention, especially where some class members have a tendency to always agree with what other speakers said.

As a further activity, if you wish to extend this topic further, the same groups could select the DIY tasks that they agreed were easy enough to attempt, and decide what tools and materials they would need to do them

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.

For teacher training courses, English courses in Bristol UK and free interactive exercises, visit The Language Project Website.