15 Fun Like and Would Like Activities
Like and would like are two of the most commonly confused things in English. This is not helped by the fact that they often appear in the same conversation, but this means that there are many suitable practice activities that combine the two. This article gives fifteen of these, with the easiest at top and some more creative ideas further down.
Like and would like make me say yes
Students get one point each time they make their partner say “Yes, I do” or “Yes, I would” with questions like “Do you like coffee?” and “Would you like to have a bigger TV?” To make sure they use both forms, you could get them to flip a coin (heads = like, tails = would like).
Desires and preferences in common
Students share their feelings to find out that “We both like seeing new kinds of birds” and “We would both like to study abroad”, perhaps ticking off topics as they cover them. As this often leads to boring sentences like “We both like ice cream”, it’s best to only give points for things they share and no other groups do.
You could then do the opposite of finding out things they don’t share with anyone.
Like and would like bluffing games
Like and would like you must say yes
Students answer all questions like “Would you like to do a bungee jump?” and “Do you like washing up?” with “Yes, I would/ do”, even when that isn’t true. After asking follow-up questions, their partner guesses if that answer was real or made up.
Like and would like coin bluffing game
A student chooses a topic then flips a coin twice to decide if they should use “like” or “would like” and then if their personal statement should be positive or negative. They make a personal statement on that topic that matches those two things, using their imagination if they can’t think of anything true. After follow-up questions, their partner guesses if the statement is true or not.
Good and taboo like and would like questions
Students ask each other suitable small talk questions with these forms from a list. For example, they could choose “Do you like going to the cinema?” and “What countries would you like to visit?” but avoid bad questions like “Would you like to get divorced?” and “Do you like having a female boss?” After discussing which questions are bad, students can then fill in gapped good questions with the correct forms.
Like and would like guessing games
Like and would like classroom guessing
Students try to guess something about the preferences and desires in the class, such as making a statement for every available number of people in the class (between zero and the class size, as in “Nobody likes cockroaches”, “One person would like to visit the Canary Islands”, etc).
Like and would like object guessing
Students choose an object and give hints like “Cows like this” and “I would like to have more outside my house” until their partner guesses what it is (“grass” in this case). This only works for some objects, so you’ll need to give them a list of suitable objects to choose from.
Like and would like sentence guessing
Students say just the end of a personal sentence like “A new espresso machine” or “Getting up early” and their partner tries to guess that it is “You would really like a new espresso machine” and “You really don’t like getting up early”.
Like and would like invitations challenge
Students try to reject each “Would you like to… (with me)?” invitation with “I’m afraid I don’t like…” until they run out of different (real or imaginary) reasons to say no, in conversations like:
Would you like to come to a café with me?
I’m sorry but I don’t like crowded places.
In that case, would you like to come to my house?
I’m afraid I also don’t like coffee.
That’s okay. I also have tea, fruit tea, homemade fruit juice and mineral water. Do you like one of those?
Like and would like recommendations activities
Like and would like present giving
Students find out their partner’s likes and dislikes, then try to suggest suitable presents, in exchanges like:
Do you like flying?
Yes, I do.
Do you like peace and quiet?
Yes, I love it.
I think that you would like a flight in a glider.
That’s a great idea, but I’ve already had a flight in a glider. Do you have any other ideas?
Like and would like ad writing
Students compete to write the best adverts in the pattern “Do you like relaxing after completing your housework? Would you like the chance to do that after just fifteen minutes a day? Then you would love the new….” This can be done with their own product ideas, products made up by the teacher and/ or real inventions. This can be made more amusing by trying to sell things which are not obviously attractive like wooden teeth.
Like and would like movie pitches
Students find two movie genres or specific movies that their partner appreciates, then tries to sell a new movie concept that is some way a combination of the two, as in “If you like Xmas movies and horror, I think you’d like our horror remake of Home Alone”.
Like and would like advice for tourists
Students find out their partner’s preferences, then recommend tourist spots, local foods to try, etc. This also works well as a roleplay, with one student pretending to be a visitor to that country.
Life changes like and would like discussions
One person makes a vague statement about how they’d like to change their life such as “I’d like to change jobs”, “I’d like to move abroad” or “I’d like to start a new hobby”, then their partner tries to recommend a good option after finding out about their general preferences with “like” and “don’t like”.
Like and would like character questionnaires
Students choose a word like “reliable” or “ambitious” and write questions with “like” and “would like” to test how much that is true of the person answering the questions like “Do you like being on tie?” and “Would you like to be a CEO?”