IT WORKS IN PRACTICE More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all

worked for ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us
your own contribution.
All the contributors to It Works in Practice in this issue of ETp will
receive a free copy of Jon Taylor’s The Minimax Teacher, published by
ETp/DELTA. Why not get together with your colleagues to produce two
full pages of ideas for a single issue of the magazine?

 The Luck of the Draw?

 Editors Game
Do you find that a few talkative and confident students respond
This is a good way to give students the tools they need to
to all your questions, while quieter members of the class seldom
revise and correct their written work. At the same time, it is
speak? Even my best efforts to steer discussion towards the non-
satisfying for them to see how their own contribution has
talkers are inevitably foiled by the well-meaning chatterboxes,
been integrated into the finished product, and they really
who somehow work their way to the centre of every discussion.
Of course, I regularly make use of pairs or small groups to get enjoy being the editors of each other’s work.
everyone talking, but there are times when it’s beneficial to have Prepare blank sheets of paper with headings such as
a whole-class discussion. When I have some free time ... or When I have some
I have found a simple way to achieve this; it’s known in my extra money ...
classroom as The Lucky Draw. Before a course begins, I write each Ask students to form groups of five or six. Give each person
student’s name on a piece of paper. These are kept in a hat, in the group a piece of paper with a different heading. They
which sits in a prominent place in the classroom. Occasionally, I have to write something connected to that heading. Tell
shuffle the papers around, pull a name from the hat and direct them that they are going to pass the papers around the
the discussion question to that ‘lucky’ student. group and that each time a paper changes hands, you will
There are several advantages to this practice. give them a point of view or a perspective to write from. For
example, you could use moods, like happy, irritated, stressed
● First, no one ‘switches off’ when we’re doing The Lucky Draw –
or excited. You could also use roles, like teacher, parent,
every student is paying full attention, either hoping against
writer for a scientific magazine, song writer, etc. Remind
hope that their name will not be drawn, or that it will!
them that each time they receive a new piece of paper, the
● Second, I’ve found that students are more attentive to their topic will have changed, so they will need to read what other
classmates’ answers than they are during ‘normal’ class students have already written.
discussion – maybe because they know their turn could be
Ensure that everyone changes papers at the same time and
next.
when the papers have gone around the whole group, call
● Third, the laws of probability dictate that the name drawing time. Each person then becomes the editor of the text they
will be spread around the class so that everyone, quiet or not, have in their hand. They must create a coherent text from
must answer a question at some time. (If students accuse me the short pieces of writing. To do this, they can:
of drawing the same names again and again, I hand the hat to
them and let one of them draw the names for a while.)
● subtract anything from the text that doesn’t fit or make
sense.
I give the students a ‘pass’ option, so as not to put undue
● change anything. This could be a correction or a
pressure on those who prefer to plan their response. They can
clarification.
‘pass’ a turn to think about how they will answer the question;
then we return to them in a moment. ● repeat anything for literary effect or clarification.
The Lucky Draw proved such a hit with one of my classes that ● order things differently. This could be word order or the
they spent the whole of the last half hour of a class drawing place of a sentence in the text.
names from the hat and asking each other questions – about Finally, students read their finished texts to each other.
English, about class and about life in general! Bonnie Tsaï
Greg Tweedie Toulouse, France
Singapore

36 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue Twenty-four July 2002 •

 Line Talk  Slogan shirts
Communication is important in all language classrooms and this I get my students to write their favourite English
idea, which a colleague shared with me, has never failed to get my slogans and sayings with special markers on T-shirts.
students talking, and to keep them talking. I use it for a wide They enjoy making and wearing these
variety of communication activities, such as describing a picture,
and they are a good
reviewing the names of body parts or clothing, sharing an opinion,
roleplaying a situation, identifying and expressing emotions, etc.
reminder of the
● Divide the class in half and have the students sit facing each
other in two lines. Their partners are the people sitting opposite
E T p language they
have learnt.
Graciela Juretich
them and they do the activity you have chosen together. La Pampa, Argentina
● Move up and down the line monitoring pronunciation, helping
with vocabulary, etc.
 Is it really true?
● After two or three minutes, the students in one line move one The presentation of new grammar is often followed by a
seat to the left or right. Each student now has a new partner. controlled writing activity. However, many coursebooks use
● Repeat this procedure until all the students who move have random sentences for these activities and I find these neither
returned to their original seats. meaningful nor motivating for my students. I try to make the
activities more interesting and useful by using material that they
This technique promotes conversation, helps students increase
are genuinely interested in. When teaching the present simple, I
their vocabulary and widens their ability to express themselves in
write some sentences on the board about my own and my family’s
real situations. With each move, students become more
daily routines, for example, My father goes to bed late. I usually
comfortable with the topic they are discussing and seek to add new
cook. Some of them are not true. The students have to say
information with each new partner. They also develop their ability
whether they think the sentences are true or false. This has
to ask each other for additional information.
proved highly motivating as students always want to know more
Betty Bengtson
Glennallen, Alaska, USA about their teachers and they love guessing.
Next, I tell them to write true and false sentences about their
own routines and exchange them with a partner they don’t know
 Class Rewards well. Again, they have to decide which sentences are true and
This idea arose when my colleagues and I were discussing how which are false. Thus a very controlled and structural exercise
to reward good behaviour without singling students out. Our turns into a funny oral interpersonal exchange. I have used this
feeling is that when you give some students, and not others, technique with lots of structures (can, past simple, present
extra points, stars, or whatever, you are telling the unfortunate perfect, adverbs of frequency, etc). It has always worked!
students that they are failures, a feeling that can lead to lack Betiana Grillone
of motivation and, consequently, to less learning. We also Entre Ríos, Argentina
wanted to foster a cooperative attitude, where everyone was
responsible for the learning process and the group’s success.
 Tell me about it!
1 With your group, establish a list of criteria that will be Here is an idea for a challenging warm-up activity to wake up body and
part of your evaluation, eg punctuality, participation, use mind and get students thinking in English.
of English, etc.
Put students in pairs, A and B. The As start talking about themselves
2 Decide with them a grading system and how many points and the Bs pick up on a content word from what has been said and say
you will award for each level. For example, excellent may be Tell me about (the word). The As then have to talk about this word until
five points, good may be four points, fair, three points and interrupted again. Let the conversations go on for one or two minutes,
so on. with the Bs interrupting with Tell me about ... as much as possible. Then
the As and Bs swap roles. A conversation might go something like this:
3 Get a transparent container and some buttons (or other
countable objects). Place two or three marks on the A: My name is Fumiko and I come from Japan and ...
outside of the container. Tell the students that a button B: Tell me about Japan.
will be put into it for every point they are awarded. Tell A: Japan is a groups of islands in ...
them, too, what reward they will get when the container is B: Tell me about groups.
filled up to the marks (eg a field trip, an outing to a pizza A: Well, for example, you get pop and rock groups and ...
restaurant, etc). B: Tell me about rocks.
A: Um, people sometimes climb big rocks, but I think it’s too
4 At the end of a lesson, tell them how many points or
dangerous ...
buttons the group gets for that particular class, according
B: Tell me about danger.
to the criteria established before. Remind them that the
etc.
points go to the whole class.
More advanced students could be told to try to pick up on words other
We have been using this system for a semester and it really
than nouns, which have to be made into nouns in the Tell me about ...
works.
sentence, such as dangerous and danger in the above example.
Daisy Glass
Vitória da Conquista, Brazil Mark Almond
Canterbury, UK

• Issue Twenty-four July 2002 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • 37