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useful words and phrases into the discussion vvhile, at the same time, giving us a iot of examples of student ianguage. We can use these iater in study sequences, where we both look at so me of the mistakes the students made, and also help them to say things better or more appropriately. ' Example 2: role-play (intermedate to upper intermedate) Many teachers ask students to become involved in simulations and role-plays. In simulations, students act as if they were in a real-life situation. We can ask them to simlate a check-in encounter at an airport, for example, or a iob interview, or a presentation to a conference. Role-plays simlate the real world in the same kind of wav, but the students are given particular roles - they are told who they are and often what they think about a certain subject. They have to speak and act from their new character's point of view. I h e oiiowmg foie-piay seis up a dramatic situation and then gives the participants role-cards which tell them how they feel and what they want to achieve. The teacher presents the class with the following situation: ! Last night the Wolverhampton Trophy was stolen from the Woivprhampton .Foolbai! Club Headquarters at around 9 . 3 0 in the evening. The plice have brought in a youth for questioning; they beiieve this youth stole the trophy. The suspect is being nterviewed by two plice officers. The suspect's lawyer is aiso present. But because the suspect is not yet eighteen, a parent is also present. I When the teacher is su re the students understand the situation (including, for example, the meaning of'trophy'), the class is divided into five groups: suspect, plice officer ), plice officer 2, lawyer and parent. Each member of the group is given the role-card for the part thev are ta piav. The role-cards are as foJiows: The suspect You are seventeen and a haf years od. You did steal the trophy, of course, but you don't think the plice have any proof. You want to know where the plice got their information. When they ask you what you were doing last night, you'll say you were with a friend. You enjoy being silly when the poce ask you questions. You get angry when the lawyer tries to stop you doing this.

1 Plice officer 1 j The suspect was seen ieaving the club house at around 9 . 3 0 by two other criminis, j Ben and Joey, but you can't tell the suspect this, because that would put Ben and j Joey in danger. So the only thing you can do is to keep asking the suspect different j questions about what they were doing last night in the hope that they'li get confused | and in the end confess. I You have had enough of teenage crime in your rea. It makes you reaily mad. Anyway, yj>u u u a n t tr aat hQmo_ rjo-runate-Jy, yon get angry rather quicWy. When your plice colleague tells you to calm down, you get really angry.

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only thing you can do is keep asking the suspect different questions about what they were doing last night in the hope that they'll get confused and in the end confess. You lke your partner, but you get really worried when they start getting angry since this doesn't help in a poce interview situation, so you try to calm your partner down. But whenever a suspect's mother or father tries to say that their beautiful child is not really to blarre for somehing, you get really irritated.
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i Your job is to protect the suspect. i You try to stop the plice asking difficuit questions - and you try to stop the suspect i saying too much. j Parent j You think your child is a good person and that if they have got into any troubie it 1 isn't their fault. Your partner (the suspect's mother or father) was sent to prison and i the suspect is very upset about this. j If you think the plice are being unfair to your child, you should tell them so - and I ; make sure they realise it isn't really your chid's fault. i
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In their group.s, students discuss the role they are going to play. What kind o f questions will they" ask if iev are plice dfceM' WiWt wi thcv" say jf they are lauyers (e.g. 'Yon don'i have to answer that question )?, etc. They discuss what the other people in the situation are likely to do or say. While they are doing this, the teacher goes round the class clearing up any doubts the students might have and giving them language they think they might need. This pre-siage is vital for getting students in the m o o dforthe acciyjty, Students are now put in new groups of suspect, two plice officers, lawyer and parent, and the role-play gets going. The teacher goes from group to group, helping out and noting down any language that is worth commenting on later. When the activity isfinished,the teacher telis the class what he or she witnessed and works on any persistent mistakes that occurred during the role-play. A variation of this kind of detective activity is the game Alibi. The teacher invens a crime - probably related to grainmar or vocabulary the students have been learning - and, say, three students are sent out of the classroom to concoct an alibi about what they were doing when the crime was committed. The three students are now called back one by one and questioned by the rest of the class. When the second student comes in, the class try to find inconsistencias with the alibi ot the rst of the three. The same happens when the third student of the three turns up.
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it doesn't actually matter who they decide on since the game is simply designed to have students ask and answer, using their questions and an.swers as fluently as possible. There are dffering views about whether students gain more or less benefit from simulating reality as themselves or, converse!}-, plaving the role of someone else in the same situation. When students simlate reality as themselves, they get a chance for real-life rehearsal, seeing

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how they themselves would cope (linguistically) in. such a situation. G i v i n g students a rote, on the other hand, allows them to 'hi.de behind' the character they are plaving, and this can somefimes allow them tu express themselves more freely than they would if they were voicing their own opinions or feelings. The best thing to do is to try simulations with and without roles and see which works best with a particular group. Example 3: the portrait interview (almost any levcl) The ollowing speaking sequence shows how portraits can be used to provoke questions and answers which can then develop into a very invoived conversation. The amount of conversation wi, of course, depend to a large extent on the leve] of the students: at lower levis they may ask questions like
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portrait (see bclow), whereas at higher levis the questions (and answers; may be significantly more complex. This kind of activity can work well with both children and adults. The activitv develops in the rollowing way: Stage 1 - students are puf into three groups. Each. group gets a copv of ' l i t e Arnolhnt N larriage' by Jan van Eyck - or a large versin of the painting is proiected onto a screen. Stage 2 - each group selects either the man,
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at the picture carefully and then come up with as many questions tor their character as possible. Every student in the group must make a copy of all the questions produced by the group. (One group of advanced students produced questions for the man such as, "How long did it take to have your picture done?' and 'What is written on the wall?'. For the woman thev put, 'Why don t yon replace the missing candles in the chandelicr?' and 'Why is your room so untidy*r and for the dog, 'Why don't you run from such a dark room?' and ' H o w did thev manage to keep you in that position tor such a long time?') Stage 3 - students are put in new groups of three (one from each of the original three groups). Each student i n the group takes on the identity of one of the two characters thev did iwt prepare questions for. The student with the questions for them interviews them, and the other student has to follow up each answer with a subsequent question. Stage 4 - three students are chosen to play the different characters. Thev come to the Iront ol the class and are int.ervi.ewed m the same wav Quite apart from its intrinsic appeal as an activity which provokesst udents into looking more closeiv at a work of art (which is satisfymglv ambiguous in many respeets), this speaking