Access English Centre

Immigrant Centre Manitoba

Daily Conversational Skills – #1 “How was your week?”

Work-out Activity - Beginner Level

60 minutes

Facilitator Note: This activity requires the participants to work together to learn how to engage in small talk about their daily life such as their weekday and weekend activities with their family and friends. With the help of the pictures, this activity can be adapted for the low beginner level as well. The frame sentences can be used as aguide for participants tocopy and practice while working with their partners. The purpose of this activity plan is to get learners to practice the basic daily conversational skills. The key frame sentences are “How was your week?”“How was your weekend?”“Did you have a good weekend?” “What did you do?”“I went shopping” “I visited my brother.” “I watched a football game.”

Materials: Participants need a survey sheet and pen or pencil.
Facilitator needs white board, markers, and survey sheet
10 min.
10 min.
10 min.
20 min / Introduction:
Introduce commonly-used topics when initiating small talk such as the weather forecast, weekend activities, family, hobbies, and sport events by asking “How was your weekend? What did you do?” For low beginner levels, it will work better if you go over the vocabulary first, and then practice the frame sentences before conducting the survey.
On the whiteboard write:
Linda: “How was your weekend, Mary?” “What did you do?”
Mary: It was great. I went shopping and visited my friend. How was your weekend, Linda?”
Linda: My weekend was wonderful. We went to a party at my friend’s house.
Procedure: Before you begin, lead the whole group by reading the dialogue aloud.
Activity one: After practising the dialogue a few times, ask the learners to work with their partners to practice the sample dialogue together twice.
Activity two: Give each learner a survey sheet and call on a participant to read the instructions aloud. When the participants are clear on the activity, ask them to go around conducting the survey. Have the learners write the name of the person below the picture of the activity that was done during the weekend. The one who finishes the survey first, wins.

“How was your weekend? What did you do?”

Go around the room and find another participant who did one of these activities. You must ask the question “Did you…?” And then, the participant must answer the question with “Yes, I did.” or “No, I didn’t.” If the participant didone of these activities then write his/her name in the box. Try and fill in each box with a participant’s name.


Did you go to church? /
Did you go to abirthdayparty? /
Did you watch news on T.V? /
Did youspeak English?

Did you go to a restaurant? /
Did you use a computer? /
Did youclean your house? /
Did youride the bus?

Did youcall your home country? /
Did you visit your friends or relatives? /
Did you cooktraditional food? /
Did you goshopping?