Writing Activities

Dictogloss
Aim of the activity To take notes and to reconstruct a text in a grammatically accurate form Preparation Choose a passage containing appropriate target language. Procedure Tell the students that you are going to read a passage twice, at normal speaking speed. They should note down key words and expressions. Read out the passage at normal speaking speed. Ask the students to work in groups of three or four. They should combine notes and reconstruct the text, not trying to write the exact words of the original, but coming up with a grammatically correct version. Compare versions.

Dictogloss variation for mixed ability classes

Aim of activity To enable a dictogloss activity to take place in a mixed activity class Preparation Choose a passage containing appropriate target language. Procedure Put the students in groups of three or four, according to ability. Tell the students that they are going to listen to the passage twice, and they are going to try to reconstruct the text, not trying to write all the exact words of the original, but following the storyline, and producing a grammatically correct version of the passage after they have listened. Read out the passage at normal speaking speed. Ask students to work together to note down key words and expressions they remember. Hand out a worksheet to each group, with a certain number of words or sentences from the text, according to ability. Read the passage again at normal speaking speed. The students finish their version of the story. Students compare their versions.

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Expand a story
Aim of the Activity To show paragraph organisation and introduce the idea of expanding basic factual information Preparation Choose a short human-interest story from a newspaper. Prepare enough different editors suggestions for each pair of students. (See stage two below for examples). Procedure: Stage one Tell the students that they are going to guess what a newspaper story is about by asking the teacher Yes/No questions. For example, Is it a crime story? Is it about an animal? Answer the questions until you feel the students have run out of ideas and ask them to recap what they know about the story so far. Tell the students to read the story to find out more about what happened. Procedure: Stage two Tell the students that they are reporters working for the newspaper that is going to publish this story and that their editor has asked them to expand their story because there isnt enough news that day! Tell the students to work in pairs or small groups and give each group a different editors suggestion which you have prepared for the article. For example, Give more details about x person Describe x and ys appearance Describe x persons reaction Explain why x happened/ was happening Tell the students to rewrite the article including the suggestion and any other information they wish to invent. Put the rewritten articles on the wall for the other groups to read.

Story Skeleton
Aim of the activity To write a story and to include adverbs of attitude, manner and time Preparation Find a short story with some good examples of adverbs in it. Rewrite the story without the adverbs and write a list of the missing words. Prepare one or two story skeletons. For example: A man went abroad on holiday. He met a woman and they fell in love. He asked her to marry him. The man went home. 2 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Or Three friends went on holiday in a car. They camped. Things went wrong. They got home safely.

Procedure Give a copy of the short story to each member of the class and ask them to read it through quickly. Check comprehension with a few gist questions. Now display the missing adverbs and ask them to decide where they were in the original text. Give the students time to do this individually and then ask them to compare with a partner. Check open class. Tell the students that they are going to write a story now. Ask the students to work in groups. Show them the two story skeletons and ask each group to choose one. Alternatively, they can invent one of their own. They should discuss each sentence and add as much detail as they can think of. In addition, their story should include the following: At least two adverbs of attitude At least one adverb of manner At least three adverbs of time When the students have finished, they should read out their stories for the rest of the class and vote for the best one.

Positive and negative

Aim of the activity To practise writing a postcard Preparation Write a typical postcard as if you were on holiday. Blank out all the adjectives and descriptive language. Procedure Divide the class into two groups, group A and group B Ask the students to work with a partner from the same group. Hand out a copy of the blanked postcard text to each student in the class and ask group A to fill in the blanks in a positive way and group B to fill in the blanks in a negative way. Ask students to work with a partner from the other group and compare versions when they have finished.

Consequences
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Aim of the activity To write a story or text by passing it round the group and writing one part each Preparation No preparation is necessary for this activity, although you can make it more controlled by writing prompts in the form of unfinished sentences and "fold" instructions to show where the piece of paper must be folded. Procedure Divide the class into groups according to the number of sentences they are going to write and give each student a copy of the unfinished sentences. Ask each student to complete the sentence at the top of the worksheet, and when they have done that, to fold their piece of paper so that the sentence they have written is hidden and the next unfinished sentence is visible. They should then give it to the student on their left. Ask the students to complete the sentence that is now at the top of the page on the piece of paper they have received. When they have done that, ask them to fold it as before and give it to the student on their left. If the students started the activity with a blank piece of paper, you will need to dictate the beginnings of sentences for the students to complete and give folding instructions orally. Repeat the activity until all the sentences have been completed. Tell the students to open out the completed text they have received and correct any mistakes they find.

Circular Stories
Aim of the activity To write a collaborative story Preparation Write some beginnings of stories. For example Jane seemed like an ordinary teacher but she had a terrible secret. Tim woke up to see green and red flashing lights outside his bedroom window. Julian was driving along a dark country lane. Suddenly his car stopped. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. Procedure Ask the students to work in groups of three or four. Give each group a blank piece of paper. Dictate a different story beginning to each group. Ask groups to continue their story for five minutes. Say Stop and ask the groups to pass on their story to the next group in a clockwise direction. The next group reads what the first group has written, makes any corrections and then continues the story. Continue like this, giving the groups slightly more time, as the stories get longer. When the group eventually gets the story it started, the members should decide how 4 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

to finish it. The stories are then read out to the whole class. The teacher can collect them later for correction.

Visualisation
Aim of the activity Creative writing Procedure Tell the students that they are going to do a psychological test that is designed to reveal their innermost secrets but you should stress that it is a bit of fun and that they should not take it too seriously. Ask them to follow your instructions, and give them plenty of time to write down their descriptive sentences. Instructions Youre walking along a path > DESCRIBE IT The path goes into a forest. As youre walking along, you find a twig on the path in front of you > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO WITH IT You carry on walking until you come to where an enormous tree trunk is lying across your path > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO WITH IT Further along the way, you meet a bear > DESRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO At the end of the path, theres a wall > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO What is behind the wall > WHAT CAN YOU SEE/HEAR? What it means Youre walking along a path > DESCRIBE IT (how you see life) The path goes into a forest. As youre walking along, you find a twig on the path in front of you > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO WITH IT (how you deal with small problems) You carry on walking until you come to where an enormous tree trunk is lying across your path > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO WITH IT (how you deal with big problems) Further along the way, you meet a bear > DESRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO (love) At the end of the path, theres a wall > DESCRIBE IT AND WHAT YOU DO (death) What is behind the wall? > WHAT CAN YOU SEE/HEAR? (after death)

Text building through Poems

Aim of the activity To improve vocabulary range and practice using the second conditional Preparation 5 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Write a grid on the board and ask everyone to note at least five words for each heading on a sheet of paper. Colours Sounds Smells Animals Food

Procedure Write negative connotation word pairs on the board, eg. A hairy spider, cold porridge, dirty grey, burning tyres, a hissing snake and then read out the poem getting students to complete each line from the list. A If If If If If person I dont like he were a colour hed be he were a sound hed be he were an animal hed be he were food hed be he were a smell hed be

Ask your students to write a poem about a person they love or admire. This is good for building up positive words that collocate together. If this is too difficult for your students use the single words that you collected in the grid at the beginning of the activity.

Some ideas for correction work:

In order to encourage self-correction and to reduce the stress of writing, the following techniques can be tried: 1. Use correction symbols so that students can self-correct, individually or collaboratively. (see handout ) 2. Underline mistakes and number them according to the relevant section/page in a grammar or text book. 3. After a collaborative writing task, ask students to read their work aloud to other groups, who make oral suggestions for improvement. 4. When students do a group-writing task, ask them to write on overhead transparencies so that you can display the work for the whole class to read and do open class correction. 5. Ask students to pass their work to another student or group of students for comment. 6. Put the students work on the walls and ask them to choose favourite phrases or sentences from the other students work. 7. Ask students to rewrite work at home after a peer correction stage in the class.

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