Needs analysis/ Phrases for talking about personal experiences
Share stories of the things below and make notes about your partner in the boxes. If something could fit into more than one place, you only need to write it once.
Name of interviewee: _________________________________________________________
|
|
Present/ (Most) recent |
Other experiences, e.g. first |
Future |
|
Using English in studies
|
|
|
|
|
Using English at work
|
|
|
|
|
Using English in your free time
|
|
|
|
|
Using English abroad
|
|
|
|
|
Writing English
|
|
|
|
|
Reading English
|
|
|
|
|
|
Present/ (Most) recent |
Other experiences, e.g. first |
Future |
|
Listening to English
|
|
|
|
|
English lessons
|
|
|
|
|
Self-study of English
|
|
|
|
|
Good experiences of learning English
|
|
|
|
|
Bad experiences of learning English
|
|
|
|
|
Good experiences of/ while using English
|
|
|
|
|
Bad experiences of/ while using English
|
|
|
|
Brainstorm at least three phrases you could have used in the discussion above into each of the categories below
Asking about experiences
Asking for more details about experiences
Following your partner’s story with your own experiences
Talking about recent experiences
Talking about regular/ repeated experiences
Talking about past/ first experiences
———————-
Suggested phrases
Asking about experiences
Do you have experience of…?
Have you (ever) (experienced)…?
When did you first/ last…?
When you were…, did you…?
Asking for more details about experiences
But don’t you (also) find that…?
Did you also…?
Do you regret it?
Does that mean that you’ve never…?
How do/ did you feel about it?
How was it?
Looking back,…?
Overall,…?
Was it a good experience?
Would you do the same thing again?
Following your partner’s story with your own experiences
Something similar/ like that happened to me when…
That matches/ doesn’t match my experience.
That reminds me of…
That sounds like the time when…
You (don’t) surprise me. My own experience is…
Talking about recent experiences
I last… when…
My most recent experience of… is…
The last time I… was when…
The last time this happened to me,…
This happened to me just a couple of days ago/ just a few days ago/ just the other day/ a week or two ago.
Talking about regular/ repeated experiences
Generally speaking, my (personal) experience is…
I generally find that…
I’ve only had good/ bad experiences. For example,…
In my (limited) experience,…
On the whole, I find that…
Talking about past/ first experiences
I don’t remember exactly when, but…
I first… when…
I hadn’t experienced this until…
I must have been about… years old when…
I used to… all the time
It was (quite) a long time ago, but…
The (very) first time I… was when…
The first (of many) experiences of this for me was…
The first time I experienced this,…
When I was three/ much younger/ just a toddler/ at kindergarten,…
—————————
Sharing personal experiences phrases practice bluff game
Give your partner one of the phrases above for them to use. They must use exactly the phrases you give them to share true or made up experience. Perhaps after asking them for more details, guess if their story is real or not.
Do the same, but this time with the second person responding to the story with one of the “Following your partner’s story with your own experiences” phrases above. Perhaps after asking for more details, the two people should then guess if the stories are true or not.
———————————-
PDF version for easy saving and printing: Sharing experiences of using and learning English
TEFLtastic 