1. Activating

· For what different reasons do people want to learn English as a second language?

· What kinds of problems to people encounter when they try to learn English?

2. Sharing

· Think of some ways you have tried to learn English in the past.

· Work in groups of three. Tell the rest of your group about the different ways you have tried to learn English. As you listen to your partners, decide if you have had any similar experiences to them.

3. Preparing

· Choose one experience of one member of your group. One of you is going to tell the rest of the class about this experience (it doesn’t matter if the person who speaks is the person who had the experience or if they talk about the experience of someone else in their group).

· Spend 15 minutes, as a group, preparing what the speaker is going to say. Think about a) information, such as when and why they were trying to learn English; what method they used; what what was good and bad about the method; would they recommend it to others; and b) the organisation and structure of what the speaker will say.

4. Performing

· The speaker from each group talks to the rest of the class.

· As you are listening to other speakers, try to answer the following questions:

a) Why was the person trying to learn English?

b) What did they do to try to learn English?

c) How long did they keep trying this method of learning English?

d) In what ways was the method successful/unsuccessful?

e) How effective would this method be for you?

5. Reporting

· When you have heard the speaker from each group, compare your answers to the questions with the other members of your group.

· As a group, decide which of the methods of learning English which you have heard about is, in your opinion, the most effective.