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. The contributors to this issue will each receive a digital subscription
to Modern English Teacher.

REMOTE CONTROL TREASURE ISLAND

ENGLISH Simone Thomas, Lille, France
Sandra Poulson, Macclesfield, UK This is a two-part activity. The
I have tried various ways of preventing first part is a kind of picture
my students from slipping into their dictation. I make a handout
mother tongue when they are working with the outline of an island
in pairs or doing group discussions. and give a copy to each
Handing out red cards to ‘offenders’ student. I then describe the
and giving extra tasks to anyone who location of different features
has three red cards by the end of the on the island (mountain ranges,
lesson – or asking them to clean the rivers, ports, towns, forests,
board – has had some success, but beaches, deserts, etc), asking the
the thing that has worked best for me students to listen and draw these
is to bring a TV remote to class. features in. The description is quite
Whenever I hear anyone speaking in detailed, involving the points of the
their mother tongue when they should compass (eg There is a port in the
be speaking in English, I call their north-west corner of the island. A river
name, point the remote at them and runs from the mountains in the centre of
press one of the buttons, saying in a the island to the town in the south, etc). The
puzzled tone: ‘Oh, no, the TV has students should end up with maps which, if
changed to a [Spanish] channel again! not entirely identical in appearance, have all the
Let’s switch it back to English.’ This features in the same place. I keep a copy of my own
has the effect of gently reminding the map with the features marked in to act as a reference. It is important that
students to speak in English. In some the students’ maps are sufficiently similar to carry out the next part of the activity,
classes, the students demand to take which involves giving directions to find buried treasure.
control of the remote themselves, Once I have checked that this is the case, we move on to the second part of the
gleefully pointing it at any of their activity. I reveal to the class that the map is actually a treasure map, and I tell them that
classmates they catch using anything they each have to decide where the treasure is hidden. They mark the location with a
other than English. n small cross on their map, without showing it to anyone else. I then put them into pairs, A
and B, reminding them not to show their map to their partner. Student A begins by
giving Student B directions from one of the places on the map to the location of their
treasure. They don’t have to make it a straight route: they can send them there via any of
the other places on the map if they wish. Student B traces the route on their map and
marks a cross where they believe Student A’s treasure to be. Without checking the
answer, Student B then gives Student A directions from their chosen starting position to
the location of their treasure, again sending them there by whatever route they choose.
When Student A has marked a cross on the map for Student B’s treasure, they compare
maps, to see if the crosses are in the correct places.
Some classes may need help with giving directions, in which case I put
example language on the board (eg go through the forest, turn left/right when you
come to the river, etc). Sometimes, I start with an example, marking the location of
the treasure on my own map first, and giving the whole class directions to find it. In
my experience, students find this a fun way to practise vocabulary for geographical
features and giving directions. n

38 Issue 127 • March 2020 www.etprofessional.com

 IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

SPEECH BUBBLE MASTERPIECES

Kevin Scott, Halifax, UK
It is relatively easy to add speech and thought bubbles to personal photos on
smartphones and tablets (there are a number of apps available for this, such as
You Doodle and Bubble – just ask your teenage students for help). However, it is
also possible to add bubbles to famous paintings, using Photoshop. Have you ever
wondered what Whistler’s mother was thinking as she sat for her portrait, or what
the people in Van Gogh’s ‘The Potato Eaters’ are discussing? Students often come
up with some very creative ideas – and the results can make an attractive and
entertaining display for the classroom.
First, choose a painting that shows at least one, but preferably two or more people.
Paintings with lots of people or people in unusual situations work best. I have had
good results with ‘And when did you last see your father?’, a painting by William
Frederick Yeames, which shows a young boy being interrogated by Parliamentarian
soldiers during the English Civil War (though it is best not to tell the students in
advance what the picture is actually about – you don’t want to stifle their creativity).
Upload an image of your chosen painting into Photoshop and use the ‘Callout’
feature to add speech bubbles. Print out the result and give a copy to each student.
Ask them to look carefully at the picture and to think about how the people in it might
be feeling, what they might be thinking – and what they might be saying.
Tell them that they are going to complete the speech bubbles with their ideas. You
could insist that they use a particular language structure, or give them free rein to
use whatever language they like. If you wish, you could get the students to write the
text of their speech bubbles on a separate piece of paper first, so that you can check
and correct them, if necessary. Then ask them to complete the speech bubbles as
HIDDEN LANGUAGE neatly as possible. Display the results on the walls of the classroom as an ‘art gallery’
Marek Krejci, Prague, Czech and invite the students to go round and read each other’s work. You could offer a
Republic small prize for the most interesting, the funniest, etc, based on a class vote.
When I am teaching a particular As an alternative, you could add speech bubbles to a number of different paintings,
language structure, I like to play a so that the students aren’t all working on the same one – and your final display will
game with my students in which I give look more like a real art gallery. n
each of them a slip of paper (which
they mustn’t show to anyone else)
containing an example of the target
structure – a secret phrase! So, for
example, if we are practising
conditionals, all the secret phrases How much longer am I
going to have to sit for

James Abbott McNeill Whistler: Whistler’s Mother [Public domain]

might be if clauses (if I had a dog, if I
found a wallet) or phrases with would this painting – and who
(would buy a car, would telephone my does he think is going
mum); for relative clauses, the secret to make dinner?
phrases might include who ate the
most biscuits, which was very
uncomfortable or where the sun shines
every day. I tell the students that, for
homework, they should write a short
story that includes their secret phrase.
I explain that, in the next lesson, they
are going to read out their stories for
the rest of the class to guess which
phrase is their secret phrase. Of
course, the more examples of the
target language they use in their
stories, the better hidden their secret
phrase will be. This motivates them to
include as many examples of the
structure as they can. n

www.etprofessional.com Issue 127 • March 2020 39