Great Expressions

Students demonstrate the versatility of a natural expression by writing sentences across random topics.

Procedure

1. Students brainstorm writing topics and pool them on the board (e.g., food, travel, relationships, work, health).
2. Teacher creates a spinner wheel from the pooled topics (or uses a random topic generator).
3. Teacher introduces a versatile expression (e.g., It's not the end of the world, There's no point in -ing).
4. A student spins the wheel. Everyone writes a sentence using the expression with the landed topic.
5. Students share their sentences — class discusses whether each one makes sense and sounds natural.
6. Repeat with new spins. After 3-4 rounds, introduce a second expression and continue.

Tips

• Choose expressions that genuinely work across many contexts — that's the whole point.
• Encourage students to push the expression into unexpected topics; this reveals its true range.
• If a sentence doesn't quite work, use it as a teaching moment — some expressions have limits, and discovering those limits is valuable.
• This works well as a follow-up after encountering the expression in a reading or listening text.