Surprising Information: Explanation

Surprising Information

• Details

Name of Item	Surprising Information
Activity Type	Grammar / Discussion
Student Level	Lower Intermediate - Intermediate
Time Allowance	10 - 15 minutes
Preparation Required	Preparing to explain / give more examples
Other Items Needed	Nothing special
Vocabulary	still / yet / already / no longer / any more / at last
Grammar	Sentence patterns for the above phrases

• Instructions

This work-sheet is designed to familiarize students with the different meanings of six phrases that show the attitude of the speaker to the timing of an action. This can be illustrated by two speakers describing the same event but using different words. You might ask students the difference between these two at the beginning of the lesson and leave it displayed on the white-board / black-board until somebody figures it out.

"It's already stopped raining!"

"It's stopped raining at last!"

You may want to explain / elicit the various words at the beginning. If the students think that they know the words, you could just give the students the gap filling exercise to do in small (collaborative) groups and see how they get on. After checking their answers, and when everybody agrees on the same answers, you can move on to the grid where they have to match the words to the attitude that they convey. Correct answers are as follows: 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4.