Level:
Pre-int and above
Topic:
Interviewing about your home country
Application / software:
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
mp3 recorders
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
120+ minutes
Preparation:
None
In class:
This lesson only really works in multilingual classes.
Mentally pair up or group your students so that each pair or group has more than one nationality. Give each student a nationality (not their own) from their group or pair. Ask them to visit the CIA World Factbook website, research that country and to write three or four questions based on the information they find. Tell them (or show them if you have a PC connected to a projector) that there is a lot of detailed information they should ignore but that there are also a lot of interesting facts there. Give the students time to do the research and to write their questions.
Next, put the students into their groups each with an mp3 recorder and get them to record an interview together using the questions about the other person/people’s country/ies. This could either be an exchange of questions about each other’s countries or separate interviews focussed on one student’s country.
Encourage turn taking and follow-up questions to avoid short or one word answers.
Once you have the audio files, you can upload them to a wiki or file sharing site such as box.net.
Remarks:
For a follow up activity, see Powerpoint Quiz.
Tags: audio, collaborative, mp3, web
