This storytelling game is one of my favourite and children love it. As with other games, you play in partners and it works like this: 1. Establish what the words ‘fortunately’ and ‘unfortunately’ mean. Lucky/unlucky is a commonly understood explanation but stick to the new words. 2. Model the story game yourself first with a confident speaker of English. You start a story, any story, but saying ‘Fortunately….” And then you outline a fortunate event. For example (and one I used in my class), Fortunately, I made it to the bus on time this morning. Keep it short and simple. 3. Instruct the student to give the next step in the story but make it unfortunate. Unfortunately, the bus broke down because a tire burst. 4. You now continue the story but turn the events into lucky ones. Fortunately, I had just read a book about changing tires, so I knew I could help. 5. Unfortunately, the information in the book was wrong and you ended up making the bus worse so that it couldn't work again! (One of my students actually said that.) 6. Keep going, back and forth. The escalation in events will be perceived as automatically funny by the children and they will delight in knowing what is going to happen next. 7. From the outset, set the standard storytelling game rules – no toilet humour, no jokes at anyone’s expense and no violence. 8. An additional aspect to this game is to guide the children from just making one problem worse and worse. Instead, the story needs to move along to the next problem. Resolution – problem – resolution – problem. The sequence, escalation and continuation will help develop the student’s awareness of depth in story structure and plotting. 9. OK, so after all of that, ask the students to pick pairs and let them try. Remember to stop them and tell them to swap roles. They will love the game and ask to play it more. 10. Unfortunately we have to do other tasks now. 11. Ohhhhhh! 12. Fortunately, we can play the game again later/tomorrow. 13. Horay! Here is a fun drama/imagination game from the excellent US storyteller David Novak (left) who I saw at work in China. 1. Take a metre ruler and ask the children "what is this?" 2. They will tell you it is a ruler. Ask them to imagine what else it could be. 3. Now they will start telling you that it's a sword or a giant's pencil or an oar or a walking stick. As fun and confidence builds, the answers get more adventurous. 4. Now take a short story you have recently read or studied in class, such as the Aesop Fable, The Lion and the Mouse. Ask the children to use the ruler-object in the story and see how that changes the story. For example: when the lion traps the mouse, he imagines using 'chopsticks' to eat the mouse, or the mouse is playing a 'violin' when it hears the lion's roar. It will reinvigorate the story and reinforce both narrative structure and characterisation. All with a ruler... thanks David! Here is a nice vocabulary game that teachers Adjective + Verb + Noun and what they mean. 1. Pick a noun - start with common ones the children can easily visualise, like a 'dog'. 2. How would you describe it? Adjective. 3. What is it doing? Verb. 4. What other ways are there of describing it? Every child have a turn. 5. Start again but select a new noun. As confidence builds, pick more abstract nouns that are harder to describe. The relevance of the verb selection, in particular, comes into play. For example, if you pick 'water bottle' you can describe it as 'full' or 'transparent' but what is it doing? Holding? Standing? Containing? This game can be revisited throughout the year to keep refreshing these key language components. (Art credit - Cristopher Barba, USA) 8. A wonderful way to inspire purposeful, descriptive language is to put up a stimulating, amazing photograph on the board for a few minutes every day. Ask the students: "what do you see?" At first the replies will be short and composed of nouns. As them to extend their statements by using adjectives. Now ask what the object/thing is doing (verbs). How is it doing it? (adverbs?) What does it look like? (similes). Now move into the other senses:"what does it sound/smell/feel like?" This won't happen the first time you show a picture, and it is naturally differentiated by age and other factors BUT it is surprising how quickly you can establish a descriptive method of talking with such a simple, short activity. Use your own photographs, scan them from books, use the internet - my favourite source is the photography site by National Geographic. Amazement guaranteed. Here is a great link to a website initiative called 'Visual Verse' which posts a picture and gives authors a limited time frame and word count to respond. The best get published online. Other resources: 1. Time Magazine - LightBox. 2. Magnum Photography - a classic source of amazing work. 3. Creative Thinking Photos of Erik Johannson. 4. The work of Czech/French photographer, Josef Koudleka. 5. Pictures of the life of a runaway boy in India. 7. Photography of an American city at nighttime, empty and lonely. 7. The forgotten places of the world. Check out this brilliant website by a French beatbox artist. It is great for bringing some contemporary rhythm to any text, and has an obvious link to lyrics and rap.
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Why speaking and listening?Literacy learning starts with speaking and listening; with purposeful talk and thinking. From before birth and the whole of our lives. ArchivesCategories |