El Estado innovador

1 Send one or two learners out of the room. Discuss with the class what small object they would like to hide and where it should be hidden. For example:

Learner 1: Let’s hide this watch.

Learner 2: Let’s hide this coin.

Learner 3: Let’s hide it under the box of chalk.

Learner 4: Let’s hide it in the cupboard.

2 When the object is hidden, call the learner(s) in and challenge them to find the object by asking questions. For example:

Learner 1: Is it at the front of the room?

Class: Yes.

Learner 1: Is it on top of the cupboard?

Class: No.

At an intermediate level, the learner(s) who went outside the classroom can be asked to use the present perfect (e.g. Have you hidden it near the door?) or the passive form (e.g. Is it hidden at the back of the classroom?

or Has it been hidden at the back of the classroom?).

3 When the ‘seekers’ guess correctly, they should go to the place, find the object, hold it up and say: Is it this (watch)?

Note

As so often in games, you may decide that it will help the learners if you give examples of phrases on the board for them to make use of.

7.12 Twenty questions

Family IDENTIFY

Language Asking questions to acquire information in an attempt to reveal the identity of an unknown animal, person, place, object or idea

Procedure

1 Think of an animal, a person, a place, an object or an idea, and introduce the game as follows:

Teacher: I am thinking of something. It is an animal / a person / a place / an object / an event / an idea. (Choose the most appropriate label.)

Alternatively, once the learners are familiar with Twenty questions, you can invite one of them to start off the game. This is an advantage, because it gives you the opportunity of showing the class how to narrow down the range of possibilities.

2 Invite the players to put twenty questions to the acting ‘question master’

in an attempt to discover what they are thinking of. The questions must be put so that they can be answered by Yes or No.

Examples of questions that narrow down the possibilities Is it bigger/smaller than a car?

Can you eat it?

Have you got one?

Would you normally find one in a house?

Is it made of (wood)?

Can it be easily broken?

3 Award a point to the learners if they discover what it is in less than twenty questions. Otherwise, the point goes to the ‘question master’.

7.13 Flashing a picture

Family IDENTIFY

Language Describing pictures of which one has only seen brief glimpses, using certain tenses (as determined by your choice of picture and

influenced by the questions you use to guide the learners), for example:

Past continuous: A man. What was he doing? He was running.

Present continuous: A man. What is he doing? He is sitting in a chair.

Going to future: A man. What is he going to do? He is going to jump off a building.

Variation Predicting the contents of a text based on brief glimpses of its contents, indications as to its general meaning, as well as familiarity with word order and the habitual grouping of certain words. You can choose a text to focus on a grammatical point or a function.

Preparation You will need a picture (from a magazine or drawn on paper or OHP transparency) no bigger than magazine-page size. Choose or draw a picture that consists of reasonably simple shapes rather than intricate details, and that requires the language you want the learners to practise in order to describe it. Mount paper pictures on card in order to be able to flick them over quickly.

Procedure

1 Explain that you are going to test the learners’ ability to see at great speed.

2 Hold the picture towards you and upside down, and spin it very quickly indeed so that the learners receive only a momentary flash of it. (Practise this at home! The first few ‘flashes’ should be really fast!) Make sure that

everyone can see it – there should be no heads in the way and the angle should not be too acute for learners on each side of the class.

3 Ask the class what they saw. Some will have seen nothing, but others will have seen some colours and someone might, amazingly, have seen the gist of the whole picture.

4 Continue to give the occasional flash, perhaps a little slower, and

gradually work towards a correct description in broad terms. At no point should you confirm or deny the learners’ observations. Just provoke the differences between their contributions in order to promote opinion gaps and a reason for listening and speaking.

Learner 1: There is/was a woman.

Teacher: What is/was she wearing?

Learner 1: I don’t know, but it is/was yellow.

Teacher: Yellow?

Learner 2: Orange.

5 Finally, show the picture.

Variation 1 Flashing a text

Preparation Find or write a short text which contains an example of the grammatical point you wish to focus on. Write the text on a card or OHP transparency.

Flash the text and invite students to reconstruct it, based on the words they have glimpsed.

7.14 How long is it?

Family IDENTIFY:SPECULATE,COMPARE

Language Using comparatives (bigger, smaller), superlatives (widest,

narrowest) and expressing conjecture (e.g. I think…) in speculating about, then judging …

Main game … the relative lengths of lines Variation 1… the relative widths of angles Variation 2 … the relative area of squares

The main game also involves the use of possessives (e.g. John’s line).

Procedure

1 Invite four or five learners to take it in turns to draw a line on the board.

Each line should be in a different colour, of a different length and be straight. (The lengths should not be too varied.) It helps the game if the lines are crossed.

2 Challenge the class to judge which is the longest, and which the shortest line. For example:

Teacher: Which is the longest line, Rachel?

Learner 1: John’s line.

Teacher: What do you think, Robin?

Learner 2: I think Mary’s line is the longest.

You will find it natural to use comparatives as you discuss the opinions put forward. For example:

Teacher: Don’t you think the red line is longer than the green line, Robin?

Encourage the learners to use the comparative form by questioning them in the following way:

Teacher: I think the blue line is longer than the brown line. What do you think, David?

Learner 1: I think it’s shorter.

3 After some further discussion, ask each learner to write down their judgements, for example:

The green line is the shortest line.

The red line is longer than the green line.

The brown line is longer than the red line.

The yellow line is the longest.

4 Finally, measure the lines and write the measurements next to them.

5 Staying with the same game and language practice, guide the learners into individual work, and then into pair work as follows.

Ask each learner to use a ruler to draw a number of coloured lines on a piece of paper. Below the lines they should write a number of sentences, some true and some deliberately false, concerning the relative lengths, for example:

The red line (A) is longer than the green line (C).

The brown line (B) is longer than the black line (D).

The green line is shorter than the brown line.

6 Tell the learners to exchange their papers with a partner, who must

determine, judging by eye, which of the statements are true and which false.