How to use this activity?

On the activity you will find the game board, the scoring mechanism and some useful vocabulary related to trends and change. Divide your students into three teams and make a game piece for each team. Place them on the starting positions. Teams take turns navigating the web of topics moving only between bubbles that are directly connected. For each bubble, a member of the team should make a phrase using the present present perfect to describe a change associated with the topic. If it is grammatically correct, the team earns a point. The vocabulary is there to inspire some language. If you feel a debate or conversation could break out, let it happen! The first team to get 10 points wins.

Go further

Another way to talk about changes in English is using used to. Add this expectation to the game and you’ll be practicing two ways to describe change in English. What’s great about it is that these structures describe opposite sides of the change in question. Even harder? Make everything negative xD!

It used to be bigger

It has gotten smaller

I use this technique with my students all the time and it works wonders! I want them to know why we are using these structures. Who cares if they remember the past participle of the verb rise? The most important thing is knowing that they can describe a change easily and succinctly by using the present perfect.