Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 2; March 03

How long have you had it?

Ages 11 and up
Levels Low-intermediate–Advanced
Time 5–10 minutes
Focus The present perfect + for or since, How do you feel about ____? vs What do you think of__?, small talk
Function Warm-up, break, closer

For this activity your students need to have enough room to stand and mingle.

Procedure

1. Explain that:
   • What do you think of___? is a question people generally answer fairly briefly with standard phrases such as I like it or It's OK. This question is not directly about feelings; the most natural response is an evaluation of some kind.
   • How do you feel about ___? calls for a quite definite statement of one's feelings. It is therefore a question which people may have to really think about before they answer. For this reason, answers can be quite varied—for example. I don't care about them one way or the other or I really love them; they're my lucky shoes.) It's not the kind of question you generally ask a complete stranger.
2. Tell your class the following:
   a) In a moment, you will ask them to stand up and mill around as if at a party.
   b) Each student must see an 'acquaintance' at the party, go up to her/him and say, "Oh, I've just noticed your shoes" or "Oh, I've just noticed your shirt" (or something else that the acquaintance is wearing or holding or something which is on his/her desk).
   c) The speaker (person A) must then carry on by asking, "How long have you had it/them?" The acquaintance (person B) answers, "For ____" (e.g., "For two months.)
   d) Person A then adds, "How do you feel about it/them?" Person B answers as best s/he can.
   e) Now B says, "Oh, I've just noticed your…" and so on.
   f) One of the two says, "Well, I must mingle! See you!"
   g) They each accost a new 'acquaintance' and so on.
   

Variations

• Students respond to the first question by saying "Since…." or "I got them…ago".
• Exchanges can be varied in other ways. For instance, A might ask, "So why exactly did you get them?"
• In large classes or cramped rooms, ask students to remain seated and converse in turn with each of the people sitting around them.

Comment
Deal with What do you think about ____? some other time. But just in case you get asked, questions beginning like this tend to seek a third kind of response—neither an evaluation nor a statement but rather an opinion. For example, "What do you think about capital punishment?" is something you ask if you are ready to hear a fairly detailed response. What do you think of ____ is hardly appropriate in this case. However, there is not much difference between an evaluation and a short opinion so the following would get basically the same kind of reply What do you think of / about my new haircut?

Seth Lindstromberg