Speaking Activity (How I spend my time)

This activity was taken from a presentation of Aurora Varona A. in MEXTESOL 2005

Activity:  Comparing real-world time constraints with ideal world freedom

Language Focus: Describing proportionate amounts of time
Level: elementary upwards
Material: board
Preparation: revise language to describe amounts of time

Procedure:

1. Suggest learners create a life pie to show the ratio of time they spend on more than 6 aspects of their life
2. When learners have completed their own life pies, they should write an apparisal on how closely their actual life pie meets their ideal life pie. The resulting text will vary greatly between levels. these are examples of the type of language you might expect at three levels.

Elementary: 

• I need to sleep less, I want to spend more time with my children. I love listening to music but I can't do it very often.

Intermediate:

• Ideally I'd like to have /greatly expand/reduce/abolish/triple the amount of time I spend on...

Advanced:

• in an ideal world, I'd spend the bulk of y time doing things which are relaxing and rewarding. This means that the amount of time I spend walking and with my children would instantly expand considerably, and...

 (Griffiths and Kaeohane, 2000)