Spice up your teaching with "Would you rather...?" questions

Hi there! 👨🏻‍🏫

This post is a bit different from the other ones in that I'm not sharing a lesson plan this time, but instead I'm sharing a tip that I've been using for a while now.

I guess I'm not the only teacher who sometimes dreads the blandness of most published materials available on the market. I understand that this sometimes has to do with the fact that there's a very specific language goal to meet, so the "interestingness" factor is brushed aside in favor of practice activities specifically designed with a particular linguistic objective in mind.

However, I also understand that for students (and teachers alike!) this might feel overly tedious at times. To counter this problem, I've been using "Would you rather do (A) or (B)?" questions with students. Keep reading to learn more about how I've been integrating these questions into my classes.

What?

"Would you rather...?" questions are, simply put, questions that force students to consider two alternatives in a given situation. Oftentimes both alternatives are unpleasant, but students need to consider which one they would prefer -- and justify, of course.

Why?

There are many reasons I could put forward to justify using such questions: they help to avoid death by coursebook; they can help students develop rapport as they get to know more about each other; and, needless to say, they also make for great speaking practice.

How?

I usually display a couple of questions on a slide for students to discuss in pairs. Depending on how much time we have, I might have students go over all the questions or pick out, say, two questions they would like to discuss. I then wrap up by calling on some of the students to either answer a particular question or, alternatively, I get a student to pick a question for one of their peers to respond to.

When?

I generally like to use these questions at the very beginning of class because I think it's a nice way of warming up, so to speak. Also, starting with a fun and interesting discussion seems a lot more sensible than starting a class by correcting homework! Another reason I like to use them at the beginning of class is because it allows me to start getting some language work done while we wait for everyone to arrive. 

Where?

I never come up with these questions myself. Instead, what I do is simply google something like "controversial would you rather questions" and then go on to pick out the ones I like best. :)

If you'd like to see an example of what these look like, you can save a copy of this slide presentation to your Google Drive. 

*Note: I usually do my best to give credit where it's due, but I happened to collect these questions from different websites and now I don't know exactly where they're from, so sorry about that! :(

Photo by Leeloo The First @ Pexels.com