I found this idea on the website Busy Teacher and I absolutely loved it! It is more suitable for intermediate and advanced students, but it can be adapted for more basic level students.
On the first day of class I bring a small paper box to class to represent a treasure chest. Then, I ask students to answer on a piece of paper some questions related to their expectations for the course and their English skills. Some questions that I usually ask students are: What are your expectations for the course; What are your strong skills in English? Why?; What are your weak skills in English? Why?; Which skills would you like to improve?; Why are you learning English; etc. After they finish writing, I collect their answers and put them in the box. Then, I record the students answering the same questions (if you have big groups, you can put students in pairs and ask them to record themselves) and I save all videos. I assist my students during both moments, but I try not to interfere and make a lot of corrections. On the last day of the class, I open the treasure chest and I give them back their paragraph and I play their videos again to see how much they have improved their English skills.
This activity is always a blast! Students have a lot of fun, especially when I open the box. I also usually ask students to correct their own mistakes, talk about their learning process and think about if their expectations for the course were met or not and why.
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