EMERGENCY: What to do after working with a story

I am sorry but there´s an “emergency”: a teacher´s asked for help so I´m not writing the second part of “Why should it be boring?” now but some ideas on what to do after working with a story.

Let´s say the story you read was about an animal, you could divide the students into groups and have them make this animal as they imagine it. Don´t forget to provide them with the necessary material.

You could also have them:

Ø                 Listen to a song connected to the animal and play Popcorn

Ø                 Draw a picture story

Ø                 Watch a segment of the movie if it´s available or the trailer and ask them to see the movie

Ø                 Watch a segment of a film connected in some way

Ø                 Interview the author

Ø                 Interview a character

Ø                 Make a semantic web

Ø                 Change the ending

Ø                 Write a missing scene

Ø                 Write a discarded scene (if they see the movie)

Ø                 Imagine a character´s thoughts: write, mime, tell…

Ø                 Illustrate

Ø                 Narrate what is communicated by making a dialogue

Ø                 Survey: Who likes (animal)? What do you know about (animal)? And then you could have “stations”. Students move from station to station to learn about (animal). Each station represents a different aspect of the (animal) life (pictures and written information are provided at each station). Students then have five minutes to complete an activity, say a MIND MAP, at one station before they move onto another station.

Ø                 Research in internet

Ø                 Make cards with new vocabulary to play with

Ø                 Fill in a crossword

Ø                 Work with half a crossword

Ø                 Solve an acrostic (write the animal or the name of the main character on the board for students to write an acrostic in turns, maybe you could divide the class into two groups an have a competition writing the name twice on the board.

Ø                 Board game for the fun of it (anyway they are reading and deciding whether they can continue or they miss a turn) or a specially made one with characters to be described, for example.

Ø                 Write a dialogue between two characters and have two students play the roles moving their mouths or speaking gibberish English while two dub the dialogue, or have students sing their dialogue

Ø                 Riddles with animals

Ø                 Chants

Well, I really hope you like some of these ideas, Bibiana. I mentioned some activities for older students too since I was at it . Let us know what you do and how it works out.  = )

Can anyone add more ideas to help Bibiana and the rest of us?

2 comments:

Paul Morin said...

María, I love all the creative ideas you come up with. I've had some great language teachers in my time, but I can only imagine that your classes must be super-interesting! I think that learning languages and other cultures is one of the most enriching things that you can do in life. It's important that you keep it fresh and interesting though, or it's easy for the student to lose interest. It doesn't sound like that happens in your classes too much. :-) Paul

María Inés Brumana Espinosa said...

Thank you for your kind words, Paul! Yes, we need to find new and creative ways to keep our students interested. Studying should be fun; classes should be a lively experience, a moment to forget about your hectic life and daily problems, so students can concentrate on learning. = )

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