Question formation is notoriously difficult for EFL learners – problems include difficulties with word order, using the wrong question word and troubles with auxiliaries. And as we all know, asking questions is a big part of the Trinity exams – it’s written into the specifications that candidates have to ask at least one questions from ISE Foundation / Grade 4 upwards, and they may be asked to ask the examiner a question from Grade 2 and above. So it’s vitally important that we have lots of EFL activities for practising question formation at our finger tips and that we start practising with students even in the lower levels. Here are some ideas to help with EFL question formation.
Change a word: use questions that you have used previously with your students (why not try out our conversation questions for each level?) and ask students to change one word or one part of the question to create new ones, e.g. What’s your favourite food? could become What’s your least favourite food? or What’s your favourite sport? Learners can begin to notice how questions are formed and what changes are (and aren’t) possible.
Question scramble: Put different question words, auxiliaries, verbs, pronouns and nouns on cards and ask students to make questions using the cards. They can see what is possible and you can help correct mistakes with word order etc.
E.g., Using the cards below, students could make the question Does he usually play tennis on Saturday? or What sports do you like to play?
do like he does the play usually you go the cinema to what sports
Question Generator: You need one dice for each group. Allocate a question word to each number, e.g: 1 = who, 2 = what, 3 = why, 4 = when, 5 = why, 6 = how (you could also choose question words like How many? How much? How often? if you want to practise these elements). Allocate a verb to each number for the second dice – they could be common verbs, verbs you have recently studied, verbs to do with a topic area…etc. E.g., for the topic of holidays you could choose: 1 = stay, 2 = go, 3 = visit, 4 = eat, 5 = travel, 6 = see.
The learner rolls the dice to determine the question word, and then rolls again to determine the verb. They must then make a question using the two. Say, for example, the learner rolls a 2 followed by a 4. They have what and eat. So they could form the question What food did you eat on your last holiday? or What was the best food you ate on your last holiday? or What do you like to eat on holiday? or What do you usually eat for breakfast when you are on holiday? The possibilities are endless :)
You can use this as a whole class game/activity or as a group game where the other students in the group have to judge whether the question is correct. You can monitor and give help where needed.
You can extend and adapt this activity to include modals, direct/indirect questions, different auxiliaries etc. to suit the needs and level of your students. You could even change the list of verbs to a list of tenses to help students practise forming different grammatical questions, e.g. 1 = present simple, 2 = present continuous, etc.
20 Questions: This popular game is a great way of practising forming yes/no questions and revising vocabulary from a subject area at the same time. One student thinks of a vocabulary item from a subject area and the rest of the class takes it in turns to ask yes/no questions to establish what it is. You can also make it a team game where the class is split into two and a students from each team take it in turns to answer the questions – it’s best to give the student the vocabulary item in this case, rather than them thinking of it themselves, to avoid cheating! Each team takes it in turns to ask a question and have a guess. They get a point for each question they form correctly and each word they guess correctly.
Jeopardy: This is a fun whole class game to practise question formation. Write several categories on the board with different points underneath. The teams have to choose a category and the number of points they want. You then tell students the answer and they have to form the question. If they get it right, they win the number of points. If they get it wrong, the points stay on the board. Here’s an example category with the answers and questions:
Jobs
100 This person writes books → What does an author do?
200 This person puts out fires → What does a firefighter do?
300 This person wears an apron and a hat → What does a chef wear?
400 This person wears a uniform → What does a police officer/fire fighter/security guard, etc. wear?
500 This person works in a hospital → Where does a nurse/doctor/surgeon work?
We hope you like these games – there are many other activities you can use to practise question formation and these are just a few to get you started. The key is to start with questions from the beginning and be careful that it is not always you who is doing the asking :)