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A Portrait
of the English Student as a Young Hero
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Students are used to practising their writing
skills in English class. They often complete exercises, finish sentences, write
compositions and summaries, etc. However, they seldom involve themselves personally in
creative writing activities where they connect their own point of view to a fictitious
persona. And yet I believe there is a very good reason to suggest activities that imply a
certain - if not complete - degree of personal involvement. The feeling of becoming the
main character(s) of the plot can only lead to a further motivation in the learning of the
language. I suggest the following activities:
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Level: intermediate to advanced
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1. Students write a short love story divided
into chapters. This story contains some problems. Students are the main protagonists and
use their own names and surnames.
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2. They tape it on a cassette and exchange it
with another student (student A now has student B's story and the other way round). They
listen to their friend's story at home and tape their advice to their friend's troubles.
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3. The following day they exchange tapes and
listen to the comments at home.
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4. In the last class they speak about the
solutions provided by their partners in a round-up session.
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2. The Growing Pains of . . .
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Level: beginners to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Writing a diary is not always an interesting
activity for those students who are not used to jotting down their daily activities.
However, this activity may become more alluring if
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- students write a diary limited only to a week,
- students are given a chance to invent their own actions and do not need to stick to the
truth, and
- students are encouraged to illustrate the diary with newspaper clippings or their own
pictures.
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3. My Life as a Little Kid
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Level: beginners to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students write a little book for children about
their own childhood and try to select some of the funniest things they remember about this
period of their life. They think up an interesting title and illustrate the book with
simple pictures they draw themselves.
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Level: beginners to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Writing a poem about one's life, family,
friends, feelings, problems, interests, etc., should not be difficult. Teachers provide an
example before telling students to write their own poems. Students may also tape their
poem or read it aloud with some music.
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Level: low intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students write about their own lives. They can
divide the content into periods that will vary according to each student's experience.
They illustrate this autobiography with pictures they draw or with real photographs. They
include descriptions of people and places, biographies of family members and friends,
dialogues, and the like. They can also concentrate on just one period in their lives.
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Teachers should provide an example of an
autobiography in English, or in the students' language before they tackle the activity.
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6. My Life as a Famous Character
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Level: low intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students imagine they are a famous character.
They can choose a contemporary person or someone who lived long ago.
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1. First they write about his/her life and time.
This means that they will have to do some research in the library.
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2. Once they have written their biographies,
they dress up as their selected characters, speak about themselves, and answer their
classmates' questions about the characters they are impersonating.
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Level: low intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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This activity is a variation of the previous
one. Students select their favourite animal (insect, reptile, mammal, etc.) and
impersonate it. Before starting the activity, they should do some research in the school
library about the life and habits of the animal they have chosen.
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Level: high intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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To be, or not to be,Dthat is the
question:DWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them?DTo die,Dto
sleep,DNo more; . . .
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(Hamlet , Act III, Scene One)
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Hamlet's lines are well known and they can be
used as an example for this activity. Students write a monologue about their problems,
doubts, feelings, etc., with as many questions and feasible answers as possible.
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A funny variation of this exercise is to write a
hilarious monologue about a simple problem, i.e., going to the cinema or staying at home
on the weekend. The monologue could start as follows: "To go to the cinema or not to
go to the cinema, that is the question." Later students can act out this soliloquy
for their peers or tape it, if that makes them feel more comfortable.
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Level: intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students choose words starting with each letter
of the alphabet. For example, for A, they choose ANT; for B, they select BEETLE, etc.,
until they complete the whole range of letters contained in the alphabet. If they cannot
think of a word, they should look in the dictionary. However, two points are important:
the word they select should suggest something to them and be connected with a personal
experience, and they should draw a picture related to it. Once they have drawn the picture
and written the word, they tell an anecdote or write a short story or poem about it.
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10. Letters and Postcards from Abroad
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Level: beginners to advanced
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Organisation: individual/pair work
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Students imagine they have gone on a trip to
several countries in the continent they like best. They write their teacher/friends short
letters and postcards from the different places they visit along the way. These letters
and postcards tell about the sites they visit, the people they meet, the food they eat,
and their adventures.
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Level: beginners to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students are used to reading graded readers.
This activity is a way to exploit and test their content. They become the main protagonist
and rewrite/ retell the story from their own personal point of view. They may also
"become" a character in the story and alter the plot accordingly.
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Level: intermediate to advanced
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Organisation: individual work
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Students choose an article from an
English-language newspaper. They select a piece of news with a photo and become the
protagonists of the event reported. If the piece of news is not concerned with a person,
they act as a witness to the events.
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As a variation, they can act as journalists
reporting this piece of news. They rewrite it with new dialogues, data, graphs, charts, or
other new information. They can tape it for a radio program or videotape it for TV news.
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These activities are an interesting and
attractive incentive for students as they integrate the four skills in a natural
spontaneous way. Their emphasis is on fluency rather than on accuracy, and their main
emphasis is on the process, not on the achievement of a perfect final product.
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