The language of trends commodity investment game Updated 3 June 2015
Teacher’s notes
Put students into groups of between two and five people. Cut up the sheet below and deal them out to the people in each group so that they have all the graphs between them and each person has at least one graph.
Without showing their graph(s) to the other people in their group, students should describe the past trends using the simple past, present perfect (the last point is now) and maybe the past perfect. Together they should then predict what will happen to each commodity price (using will or going to for future predictions) and decide which one to invest in.
After they make their purchases, give them the changes for the next day. To give practice of trends language, only read the part not in brackets below the first time through, then read them all again with the numbers.
- Gold has recovered somewhat (to 300)
- Silver has rocketed to a new high (of 5.50)
- Copper has had a considerable dip (and is now at 2000)
- Tin seems to have bottomed out (at 2000)
- The price of coffee has taken off (and is now at 6000)
- Sugar has picked up (to 200)
- Oil has jumped (to 26)
Students can then draw these figures on their graphs and play another round in the same way. This time, before they buy and sell give them a hint and trends language practice by telling them what will happen, but without giving the names of the products it will happen to, like this:
- (Copper) will regain lost ground (and reach 3500)
- (Tin) will bounce back (to 4000)
- (Gold) will continue its good progress (and touch 350)
- (Oil) will increase exponentially (and reach an all time peak of 38)
- (Silver) will shoot up (to 10)
- (Coffee) will plateau (at 6000)
- (Sugar) will rise steadily (to 250)
After they have made their buying and selling decisions, give the results above (changing the tense to Present Perfect). You can them continue the game in the same way if you like, deciding on the next set of prices before the groups make their buying decisions. It is also possible for other students or groups of students to take on their teacher role in future rounds.
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PDF version with graphs for students: The language of trends commodity investment game Updated 3 June 2015
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