Day 14: Up for a challenge?
A low-pressure speaking activity inspired by popular seasonal challenges.
Today’s gift is a simple speaking warmer that gets students talking quickly, without heavy thinking or prep. It works across levels and age groups and is easy to scale up or down.
Today’s gift is a simple speaking warmer that gets students talking quickly, without heavy thinking or prep. It works across levels and age groups and is easy to scale up or down.
Goals: encourage speaking, practise expressing opinions and preferences, build fluency through relatable, low-stakes topics, discuss personal habits, goals, and motivation.
Timing: 5-15 minutes.
Perfect as a warmer, filler, or soft transition activity.
Timing: 5-15 minutes.
Perfect as a warmer, filler, or soft transition activity.
Lesson ideas
Say something like: "December and January are full of challenges, I see them online all the time!. I've prepared some of them for us to discuss. What do you think?"
Show students 3-5 short videos or images of popular challenges. You can choose the ones that fit your students best.
Ask lower-level students:
For higher-level students, you can also ask:
Ask lower-level students:
- Have you heard of this challenge?
- Would you like to try it? Why or why not?
- Which one feels the easiest? Which one feels the hardest?
For higher-level students, you can also ask:
- What do you think motivates people to do this challenge?
- Do you think challenges like this actually help people, or are they just trends?
- Would this challenge work for you? Why or why not?
- Why do you think people focus so much on challenges around New Year and Christmas?
- Do challenges help people change, or just feel like they’re changing?
- Have you ever taken part in a challenge? What was it?
- Are you taking part in any challenge right now?
- Do challenges motivate people or create pressure?
- Is it easier to challenge yourself alone or with others?
- Why do you think "challenge culture" has become so popular in recent years?
- Do you think challenges encourage genuine self-improvement, or do they just feed into productivity obsession?
- Are some challenges (like decluttering or fitness) just veiled consumerism? (Buy this to declutter! Join this gym!)
If you're teaching this class regularly, you can propose a class challenge for the rest of December. For example,
- Everyone shares one thing they're grateful for at the start of each class;
- Everyone tries to use 3 new words/phrases from lessons this week;
- Taking a 5-minute walk every day;
- Not using phone for the first 10 minutes in the morning;
- Decluttering one item a day;
- Reading a few pages before bed.