An example

I will ALWAYS do an example for every activity that I do in class. The times that I haven't, things have often gone quite wrong, with lots of confused students not doing what I want them to do.

Today, we were talking about memories and I had 2 conversation questions up on the board. "What's a favorite memory from high school? .....from middle/elementary school?" Then, they have to follow-up with some "W" questions. I prompt my students to ask me question #1. I tell a bit of a story from high school, but very vague with almost no detail so they want to know more. They throw a few more questions at me. Then question #2: same thing. Then, once they see it in action and understand, it's easy enough for them to do it themselves and they can talk to their partner for 4 or 5 minutes. If no example, the activity would have probably been done in about 1 minute.