Make & Do

Students often struggle with Make & Do and the difference in English. I remember in Spain where the verb 'hacer' covered most of make and do that they would often make silly mistakes.

Below I will underline a creative and fun lesson which will help to Clarify this a little bit more.

Level: Pre-intermediate Teens or Adults

Materials: pen, paper, whiteboard, picures of activities.

1)  Place pictures around the room of people doing activities..

• Students move around the room in pairs and guess the activity.
• Students tell you the activities and you write these on the board with make or do before e.g doing the washing up, making a cake etc.

2) Board race: Get students into teams and get them to run to the board 1 by 1 and write down phrases with make and do.

3) Guided discovery: Studnets have a question sheet and around the classroom or outside are the answers one person runs and the other writes.

• Questions and answers can include: Which is for a process and which is for something new? Which of the following sentences are incorrect?  Draw the phrase.

4) Miming: Get students to mime a phrase in front of the class whilst their class mates guess.

5) Speaking activity: Students discuss what they make and do?

6) Homework: cut up phrases using make and do. put them into two piles, students pick one from the 'make' pile and one from the 'do' pile. They then have to do one of these, take a photo of them doing or making it and tell the class about it at the beginning of the next class.

• phrases can include: make peace with someone, make a friend, make someone smile, do something kind, do a new activity, do somethign that scares you etc