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BUSINESS ENGLISH · GRAMMAR PRACTICE · PRE-INTERMEDIATE (A2-B1)

ASKING
QUESTIONS:
PART 1
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1 Warm up

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Where do you work?

2. Where are you living at the moment?
3. Which places have you visited in the last five years?

Now decide which of the questions 1 – 3 is:

1. a present continuous question

2. a present simple question

3. a present perfect question

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

2 Subjects and objects

Part A: Look at the following sentence.

David sells computers.

1. Underline the verb in the sentence.

2. Put a square around the subject in the sentence.

3. Put a circle around the object in the sentence.

There are two types of questions:

1. A question about the subject of the information we want.

2. A question about the object of the information we want.

Choose the correct words and write a subject question.

Example:

(0) Who / buying / buys DVD’s

What

(0) Correct answer: Who buys DVD’s?

Who / What sells / selling computers?

Answer:

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

Now, choose the correct words and write an object question.

What / Why does / is David sell?

Answer:

For each of the following sentences, write a subject and an object question.

1. Sandra works in Hong Kong.

2. My manager is going to Argentina.

3. They have offered me a job.

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

3 Finding information

Your teacher will give you a short description of someone’s working day. Write questions to find the
missing information.

Student A

Text A

1
I live in and I work for a marketing company. I have worked there for
2 3
. At the moment, I am working on . I like my job because it’s
4
very interesting, but isn’t very helpful and I work long hours. I usually wake up
5
at around 6 am and I arrive at the office by 8 am. I often work late and get home
6
. I am lucky because my husband, Pablo, is a chef. Pablo is working and
he arrives home before me. My husband and his friends always cook for me and the children
each evening and we all eat together in the kitchen.

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

Student B

Text B

1
I live in Madrid and I work for . I have worked there for five years. At the
moment, I am working on advertising medicine that helps people when they have a cold. I like
2
my job because , but my manager isn’t very helpful and I work long hours. I
3
usually wake up at and I arrive at the office by 8 am. I often work late and
4
get home around 8 pm in the evening. I am lucky because . Pablo is working
5
at a restaurant close to the house and he arrives home before me. always
6
cook for me and the children each evening and we all eat together .

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

....................................................................................................

Now listen to check your answers.

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

4 Ordering questions

Put the following words into the correct order to form questions.

1. job/dislike/do/what/you/about/your?

2. do/where/work/you?

3. past/have/many/how/had/in/you/jobs/the?

4. business/travel/often/you/do/for?

5. you/long/have/there/how/worked?

6. home/do/time/get/usually/what/you?

7. moment/on/are/what/the/you/at/working?

8. usually/work/time/go/do/what/you/to?

9. job/like/do/your/you/what/about?

10. free/do/what/you/in/time/your/do?

5 Reading for gist

Now read the article on page six about the working life of Arabella Simpson and write questions (1 –
10) from the previous task in correct paragraphs (a – j).

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

My working life
Arabella Simpson
1

a. I work for a fashion company. We design clothing, all kinds of clothing like dresses, trousers, even socks. Then we
send those designs to our factories which make them into clothes for sale.

b. I’ve worked there for about six years now. I started as a designer, but now I’m in a management position and I do
a lot of work on checking the designs and looking at the cost of making them and the material that we might use.

c. Although it’s winter at the moment, I’m working on the clothes that will be available in the summer. I’m working
on a range of shorts and T-shirts for children at the moment, but we’ll be producing a lot of summer dresses soon
too.

d. I live quite close to the office, so I don’t have to commute very far. If I use my bike, it takes about 10 minutes, but
I usually walk so it takes a little longer. I leave home around 8 am and I’m usually at the office before 8.30 am.

e. Sometimes, there’s a lot of work to do because we need to get all the clothes ready. So I have stayed at the office
as late as 10 pm before now, but most of the time, I’m home between 5 and 6 pm.

f. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Asia where we work with people who produce the materials we need. It was
amazing to go to Indonesia and Thailand and see the process of making the material. I almost went to Brazil too,
but we had to cancel that trip because of the pandemic. I normally travel about once or twice a year for work.

g. I really love seeing people wearing the clothes that I’ve worked on when I’m out. I won’t say her name, but I saw
a famous actor wearing a dress I designed once. I was very happy about that.

h. Sometimes the hours are too long. It can feel like all I do is work at certain times of the year.

i. I enjoy running and swimming in my free time. There’s a lake I like to swim in. It’s very cold, but it’s really good to
be swimming outside.

10

j. I’ve worked in quite a few positions. Before I worked in design, I worked in a restaurant and even as a dancer. I
still like to dance, but I only do it in my free time now.

Now in pairs, ask each other the same questions and make notes on the answers.

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

6 Correcting mistakes

Read the following questions which contain common mistakes. Write down a correct question. There
may be more than one answer.

1. What you do on the weekend?

2. Where has Ahmed go?

3. Have you already finish the report?

4. Have you seen her presentation yesterday?

5. Did you go to the meeting since six weeks?

Now in pairs, discuss your answers and what the difference between them are. What mistakes do
you usually make when asking questions?

7 Extended activity/Homework

Use your notes from asking questions with your partner to write an article about their working life.

You can choose to write it in the first person (I work in ...) or the third person (He/She works
in ...). Use their answers and the article about Arabella Simpson to help you. Write two or
three sentences for each of their answers. Make sure you check your grammar, spelling and
punctuation.

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

Transcripts

3. Finding information

Narrator: I live in Madrid and I work for a marketing company. I have worked there for five years.
At the moment, I am working on advertising medicine that helps people when they have
a cold. I like my job because it’s very interesting, but my manager isn’t very helpful and
I work long hours. I usually wake up at around 6 am and I arrive at the office by 8 am. I
often work late and get home around 8 pm in the evening. I am lucky because my husband,
Pablo, is a chef. Pablo is working at a restaurant close to the house and he arrives home
before me. My husband and his friends always cook for me and the children each evening
and we all eat together in the kitchen.

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TEACHER MATERIALS · PRE-INTERMEDIATE (A2-B1)

ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

Key

1. Warm up

5 mins.
This gives an introduction to the grammar topic and asks students to identify tenses.

1. question 2 2. question 1 3. question 3

2. Subjects and objects

10 mins.
Part A
This reminds students that there are two ways of forming a question in any tense and reinforces the concept of
Subject and Object. Encourage students to discuss their answers. You may want to extend this by asking students
to create their own sentences and ask other students to write their own questions about them.

1. sells 2. David 3. computers

Practice

Answer: Who sells computers?

Answer: What does David sell?

1. Who works in Hong Kong? (Object) ; Where does Sandra work? (Subject) ; Which city does Sandra work in?
(Subject)
2. Who is going to Argentina? (Object) ; Why/When/How is your manager going to Argentina? (Subject)
3. Who has offered you a job? (Object) ; What have they offered you? (Subject)

3. Finding information

15 mins.
This is an information gap activity. Divide the students into two groups. Give one group Text A and one group
Text B. First, ask them to read the text and write the questions that will give them the missing information.
Then pair up students with one student from each group. Get them to ask and answer each other’s questions until
they both have the full text.

Student A’s questions

1. Where do you live?; 2. How long have you worked there for?
3. What are you working on at the moment?; 4. Who isn’t very helpful?
5. What time do you (usually) get home?; 6. Where is Pablo working?
Text A

1. Madrid
2. five years
3. advertising medicine that helps people when they have a cold

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

4. my manager
5. around 8 pm in the evening
6. at a restaurant close to the house
Student B’s questions
1. Who do you work for?; 2. Why do you like your job/What do you like about your job?
3. What time do you (usually) wake up?; 4. Why are you lucky?
5. Who always cooks for you and the children?; 6. Where do you all eat together?
Text B

1. a marketing company
2. it’s very interesting
3. around 6 am
4. my husband, Pablo, is a chef
5. My husband and his friends
6. in the kitchen

4. Ordering questions

5 mins.
This gets students to focus on word order ( a common problem in non-native speakers) which will then be used
for the next exercise.

1. What do you dislike about your job? 2. Where do you work?

3. How many jobs have you had in the past? 4. Do you often travel for business?
5. How long have you worked there? 6. What time do you usually get home?
7. What are you working on at the moment? 8. What time do you usually go to work?
9. What do you like about your job? 10. What do you do in your free time?

5. Reading for gist

15 mins.
Ask students to match the questions to the paragraphs and then spend some time asking and answering each
other’s questions. They should take notes if you’re going to use this as the basis for a writing activity later.

1. Where do you work?

2. How long have you worked there?
3. What are you working on at the moment?
4. What time do you usually go to work?
5. What time do you usually get home?
6. Do you often travel for business?
7. What do you like about your job?
8. What do you dislike about your job?
9. What do you do in your free time?
10. How many jobs have you had in the past?

6. Correcting mistakes

10 mins.

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ASKING QUESTIONS: PART 1

This gives students some time to focus on some common mistakes. Ask the students to discuss the answers and
spend time discussing the difference using a different tense can make. You may want to write a list of incorrect
questions that students have asked or get students to volunteer incorrect questions that they have heard. Use it
as a workshop and avoid focusing on the person who made the error, but the error itself.

1. What do you do on the weekend? (Generally) What are you doing on the weekend? (What are your plans for
this weekend – this is present continuous used for the future when we have firm plans and is covered more in
Asking questions – Part 3) What did you do on the weekend? (What did you do last weekend)
2. Where did Ahmed go? (Ahmed is not here) Where has Ahmed gone? (He was here a minute ago and now he’s
not) Where has Ahmed been? (Ahmed disappeared and came back. I don’t know where he went)
3. Have you already finished the report? Have you finished the report already? (These mean the same thing, but
the first one shows a little more surprise)
4. Did you see her presentation yesterday? (We can’t use the present perfect with completed time expressions
such as yesterday, on Thursday, 2 weeks ago, etc.)
5. Did you go to the meeting six weeks ago? (We can’t use the past simple with time expressions such as for and
since that indicate length of time, we use the present perfect for that)

7. Extended activity/Homework

30 mins +.
This allows students to use the work they did in the lesson to write a text. Ask students to think about the answers
and write it in a similar way to the article. Be sure to give students feedback on their work.

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