Pre-Intermediate Level >> Speaking and Conversation Materials/Discussion Starters >> The first sentence of a story is given and students take it in turns to continue the story which swings from "fortunately" to "unfortunately".
Fortunately, Unfortunately
Pre-Intermediate
This is quite an old story-chain idea which gets students speaking well.
The idea is to give students the first line of a story:
I lost my job yesterday
The next student must begin the next line with the word "fortunately".
Fortunately, I never liked it.
The following student must then begin the next line with the word "unfortunately" and on it goes until the story becomes too long or the students bore of it.
Unfortunately, I don't have any money now.
Suggestions:
- This can be used to practice certain grammatical structures such as past simple or future. Just change the first line accordingly.
- To make the activity more difficult, have the students repeat ALL of the story and not just their piece.
| Ideas For The First Line: | |
| My girlfriend left me yesterday... | It rained all day on Saturday... |
| I had to go and speak to the bank manager last week... | My boss is giving me a pay cut next month... |
| I weigh ten kilograms more now than at Christmas... | I have a headache... |
| Someone stole my car this morning... | My doctor told me to stop smoking... |
| I have to sing at a karaoke evening next week... | We have a lot of English homework for the next lesson... |
