I have never…

This is a fantastic warmer which your teen and adult students will adore. It practices the use of the present perfect tense and using the past participle. Best of all, it's a whole lot of FUN!!

What to do

1. Ask your students to think of things they have NEVER done. For example:

"I have never been to Australia"

"I have never eaten snails"

"I have never flown a helicopter"

"I have never done a bungee jump"

"I have never played golf"

Give some examples yourself first to start off your students and to help them come up with more creative answers.

Watch our video to see how the game works. Click here to follow our YouTube channel.

2. Write your students' suggestions on the board. You can ask your students to come up one by one to write their own suggestions on the board also, just be on hand to help with spelling where needed.

3. After you have gotten ten or so ideas on the board, ask your students to move their chairs so that they are sitting in a large circle.

Have your students move their chairs to sit in a large circle

4. You, the teacher, should now stand in the middle and say something that you haven't done (whether you have done it or not is irrelevant). For example, you might say:

"I have never eaten bread."

Now tell your students that if they HAVE eaten bread, then they should move and swap places with another student. Naturally, everyone will get up and move places.

Give two more examples and have students get up and move around, for example, "I have never ridden a bicycle". Again, any students who HAVE ridden a bicycle should move.

5. On the third time, you yourself should quickly take a seat and leave one student in the middle standing. Your students will find this very funny!

Time for one of your students to be in the middle!

Now it is the student in the middle's turn to say "I have never...(whatever they choose to say)". Again, your students must get up and switch around if they HAVE done it. This is a fast paced activity which your students will love!

Keep it going for five minutes or so, and when its time to wind down, you can simply make sure that you are left standing in the middle and stop the activity to move on. 

This activity will energise your students for the class and they will be more productive with language for your main activity.