English

Rob Whyte ESL speaking and writing class lessons, activities and worksheets for English students who want to learn and improve their English communication skills.

Made of and Made from

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coffee
What is coffee made from?

 

Made From and Made Of

This three-part English grammar and speaking lesson helps high-beginner and low-intermediate ESL students learn the difference between made from and made of.

  • Part 1 – brief grammar lesson
  • Part 2 – whole class practice session
  • Part 3 – pair work speaking

Part 1a. Basic Grammar Rules

Look at these sentences. Notice the use of made of and made from. Why are they used in different situations?

  • This shirt is made of cotton.
  • The chair is made of leather.
  • The vodka is made from potatoes.
  • The tea is made from barley.

These two phrases are used to talk about things that have been manufactured or processed.

  1. If the material is not changed…. then use made of.
  2. If the material has been changed (i.e. we can’t see it anymore) then use made from.

Part 1b. Made With

Some products are made from many things. We use made with when describing one of the many ingredients. (If something is made with one main material, use made from.) For example:

  • Kimchi is made with cabbage and salt.
  • This pizza is made with goat cheese.
  • These muffins are made with cranberries.

Look at these two sentences. What’s the difference?

  • This juice is made from oranges.
  • This juice is made with oranges.

Part 2. Practice and Writing

Practice writing sentences using of/from with these words and phrases.

  1. shoes, cereal, a house
  2. a tie, a can, soybean paste
  3. chocolate, a sculpture, a table
  4. bread, wine, a BLT

Part 3. Pair Work Speaking

This pair work activity is called The Hint Game. It is played with two partners and a worksheet.

  • Each partner has a list of words.
  • S/he looks at one word and gives a hint to the partner. The hint must include the use of MADE OF or MADE FROM. Of course, other words and ideas can be included.
  • Partner guesses the word and writes correct answer on his/her answer sheet.
  • Play rotates until all the words have been presented.
  • At the end of play, students keep word list and review next class.

About the exercise sheet: this exercise uses high frequency words from the New General Service List.

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PHOTO CREDIT

The image in this post comes from Aurlmas and its use complies with the owner’s creative commons licensing terms.

 

Q and A with Prepositions

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Here is a quick ESL speaking activity. It helps students learn and remember how to use prepositions when making questions and answers.

How to Use this Pair Activity

Get students in pairs. One student reads a question and fills in the blank with the proper preposition. The other students makes a long answer.

When I do pair work activities like this, I also push my students to use Sentence Blocks. This idea is simple. One question becomes 3 questions. Every question is a prompt to build a mini dialogue.

That’s one way to extend the fluency building effect of simple activities like this one.

Question Prompts

  1. What do you worry ……. ?
  2. What talents are you envious ……. ?
  3. Are you superstitious ……. anything?
  4. What things in life are you most proud ……. ?
  5. Are you fluent …….any languages?
  6. What do you often dream ……. ?
  7. What people can you most often rely ……. ?
  8. What would you like to be famous ……. ?
  9. What do you sometimes complain ……. ?
  10. Is there anything you are afraid ……. ?

Name the Group – ESL Speaking Game

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Good ESL speaking activities ask English students to speak, listen and think. This simple game does all of that.

This pair work speaking game works like this. Students work in pairs. One partner reads a list of words. The other partner listens. Then thinks. Then says how these words are connected.

Here is an example.

pizza   bread   cake   muffin

Well, there are many possible answers. They are kinds of food made from wheat. They fattening foods. They are tasty foods. Any answer is okay … it just has to be logical.

Word Game Worksheet

This is a copy and cut worksheet. Each student gets 5-10 questions. Download the worksheet here: name-the-group-eslwriting.org.