What happened? (questions without auxiliaries)

Megan | Dec 23, 2024Mar 28, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson on questions without auxiliaries are to:

• learn and practise questions with and without auxiliaries;
• discuss scenarios that involve questions;
• watch scenes from films containing questions without auxiliaries.

With this lesson, students explore questions with and without auxiliaries. They talk about situations where there might be many questions (e.g. job interview, English oral exam, networking event, etc.), watch a video with film scenes and work on useful phrases for answering questions (e.g. I can’t say for sure., I don’t feel comfortable answering that., Let me think for a moment., etc.). Students also explore the rules for creating questions without auxiliaries and role-play different situations where they ask and answer questions.

PRE-CLASS ACTIVITIES

In the pre-class part of this lesson on questions without auxiliaries, students choose the correct auxiliary verbs in questions about personal details and opinions (e.g. What is/be/are your biggest weakness?). After that, they create dialogues by matching the questions with their answers. Then, students choose two dialogues from the previous exercise and say what the situation might be. Following that, they imagine their colleague is asking them questions about work schedules and future plans. Students answer the questions and provide more details using useful phrases (e.g. That’s a tricky question., That’s exactly right., To be honest,…, etc.). 

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

In the in-class part of this lesson on questions without auxiliaries, students choose two situations they have participated in (job interview, parent-teenager argument, English oral exam and networking event). They give some details on what they remember. Afterwards, students think of one question people ask in each situation. Then, they work in pairs and ask their partner the questions. They answer them using some useful phrases (e.g. I can’t say for sure., I don’t feel comfortable answering that., Let me think for a moment., etc.). After that, students discuss what situations usually involve a lot of questions. Next, they watch a video that compiles film excerpts with questions. Students try to remember as many questions as possible. Following that, they complete questions from the video with the correct words. Students then watch the video again and check their answers. 

At this point in this lesson on questions without auxiliaries, students do tasks where they analyze a sentence and define a rule on forming questions without auxiliary verbs. Then, they ask questions for given answers (e.g.  (1) Clara sent (2) a letter. – 1. Who sent a letter? 2. What did Clara send?). After that, students find and correct mistakes in questions (e.g. What did happen last night?). Next, they discuss questions about interrogation techniques and experiences. Afterwards, students read situations (e.g. A police officer questions someone who saw a murder.) and think of possible questions that could be asked. Finally, they choose two of the situations from the previous task and do a roleplay with their partner, using the questions they created and useful phrases (e.g. Let me think for a moment., That’s a tricky question., That’s exactly right., etc.).

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students ask a question to find out what X is (e.g. I fixed X. – What did you fix?). Then, they decide what X could be and answer the question (e.g. I fixed my computer.). The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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