When the Music Stops

IN CLASS

1. Get everyone up and out of their seats.
   
2. Tell them you’re going to play some music. They should move around the classroom – walking or dancing (or doing something in-between). Explain that when the music stops, you will ask them to turn to the person nearest to them and ask them a question beginning with the question word or phrase you will shout out:
   What? Why? When? Where? How? Which? Who? How long? How many?
   How much? Whatever? Why on earth? How long exactly?, etc.
   
3.  The students report back to the class on any interesting questions and answers.

COMMENT

You can use this activity to practise specific questions you have been working on, or just focus on its energising aspect and give the students a range of interesting words to work with.

Instead of a question word, you could try giving them either an auxiliary verb or a modal to use in their question, or perhaps an adverb.

VARIATION 1

Suggest a lexical set before you start: occupations, leisure activities, countries, animals, etc. As soon as the music stops, the students have to strike a pose or do a mime of an item in that set, and they must guess each other’s.

VARIATION 2

Divide the group into As and Bs. The As freeze when the music stops and the Bs must try to make them laugh or get them to move in some way.

VARIATION 3

Just have the students get up and dance for a moment.