JOINT PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY

Developing a communicative class is one of my favorite activities, because I can share with my students ideas and problems where we can offer possible solutions in order to Students lose the fear of speaking English in class and where they can perform the language according to the topics that are relevant in their working area.

This class was designed for pre-intermediate business students and the topic is related to Guest and visitors in their companies, where they will be able to discuss about travelling, explaining the reasons for a business visit, and how to welcome visitors to their place at work. Before to plan this activity, I made sure that the group includes people who regularly travel for business or who have experienced of welcoming visitors to their place of work.  

The activities where developed in this order:

Activity1. -  I arranged the Ss seats in a circle in order to students interact face to face in the activity. I wrote in the board the following sentences that they have to interact providing their own experiences:

·         List the reasons why someone might visit a company.

·         Thinks of way in which you might entertain them in the evening.

·         What are the pros and cons of travel (for business)

·         Tell your partner about your travel experiences.

These sentences were discussed one by one in order to make them interact by themselves, in this activity I could make some questions related to their opinions but I also made them to ask about their experience and at the same time I monitored the activity walking around the circle.

Activity2. -  I provided a short abstract that contains a survey related to travel for business, love it or hate it? After student´s reading the abstract they have to debate about the next questions:

·         Are most business travelers positive or negative about business travel?

·         How close are the views of the travelers in the survey to your own views?

Students have to consider their own experiences and they have to agreeing or disagreeing in this debate; in order to increase their development, I suggested students to ask direct questions to them in order to know their different point of views where they would be able to increase their interaction.

                      Activity 3. - I asked students to discuss some questions in pairs and after that they have to provide a short feedback about their discussion to the class.

• Q1. How often do you have guest or visitor in your company?
• Q2. How do you entertain them?
• Q3. How often do you travel for work?
• Q4. What do you think of the hospitality you receive when you travel for work?
• Q5. Do you prefer being the visitor or the host?

After finishing the class I received good comments about the activities presented from my students, they felt comfortable in class because they talked about a familiar topic where they felt secure in their performance, besides that, students could work either alone or in pairs which is a great challenge for adult students, the experience was very productive at the end.