I really love jigsaw activities because they force students to speak to each other and, unlike activities like “Find Someone Who…” (person bingo), they can’t just make up answers without actually asking another student questions.  This activity takes a few minutes to explain, but my high-beginner university students understood it enough to accomplish the task.

This jigsaw allows students to practice asking yes/no questions using the past form of the “be” verb.  Students have a chart that features the names of four people, a category for place, and a category for mood.  Students must determine the mood of the four people and where they were yesterday.

Each student has one word typed into their chart (there are seven other blank spots).  The name in the same row as the mood or place word is the student’s “identity.”  For example, if the word “library” was typed on your paper next to the name “Lisa,” your name is Lisa.

At the top of the paper is a list of all four mood words and all four place words.  Classmate 1 must ask his/her classmates questions like “Were you (happy) yesterday?”

* If classmate 2 DOES NOT have the word ‘happy’ printed on their paper, they should say “No, I wasn’t happy yesterday.”

* If classmate 2 DOES have the word ‘happy’ printed on their paper, they should say “Yes, I was!  I was happy yesterday!”  Classmate 1 then asks “What’s your name?” and classmate 2 responds with the name in the same chart as ‘happy.’

To be successful in its original form, the activity requires at least 8 participants.  However, the original file includes the full answer key, so if you have a very small class and want to do this activity, you can type more information into the charts.  Or, alternatively, if you wanted to make it more difficult for a larger class, only give charts with information to eight or so students.  The other students could have blank charts and be forced to only ask questions to their classmates (this might be a bit more difficult to explain though).

03wereyouyesterday

This worksheet was made from scratch by me for use in my classes.  Feel free to use it in your own classes, but please do not distribute this file/offer it for download/include it in any teaching packets, for profit or free, etc.  Happy teaching!