IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and of the association of language schools of
techniques which have all worked for ETp Andalucia (ACEIA – www.aceia.es) in
readers. Try them out for yourself – and Spain (thanks to Julie Hetherington for
then send us your own contribution. Don’t her help in coordinating this). They will
forget to include your postal address. receive a set of the Macmillan Writing
All the contributors to It Works in Series by Dorothy Zemack et al. Macmillan
Practice in this issue of ETp were have kindly agreed to be sponsors of It
participants in this year’s annual congress Works in Practice for this year.

You say melón and I say melon Tuning in to listening

In the famous song ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’, the singer compares lots We all know the challenges our students face
of words which are spelt the same in American and British English but when doing listening activities, but how can
pronounced differently, such as tomato: /tP÷meâtPŸ/ (American English); we help them be more successful? Here are a
/tP÷mG*tPŸ/ (British English). Working on a similar principle, this game couple of useful activities I’ve used in class.
focuses on stress patterns of English words and implicitly contrasts them with Tune in to the speakers
cognate equivalents in the learners’ own language – in the case of my If you’re using an interview or chat involving
students, Spanish. two or more speakers, ask the students to listen
The game is a maze, and the learners must find a path from the in arrow at to a short snippet first and discuss which
the top left to the out arrow at the bottom right. They may pass through a speaker they find easier to understand. This
hexagon only if the word in it has the stress pattern Oo (in other words, simple activity has many positive spin-offs as it
stress on the first of the two syllables). helps the students ‘tune in’ to voices, eg speed,
loudness and accent: L2 listeners are often
The correct route is: melon – coffee – salad – lemon – menu – artist – colour
thrown by spoken characteristics of a speaker,
– airport – nation – April – minute – insect – model – problem – sofa. and this can derail understanding.
The maze shown here is designed to meet the needs of Spanish students, but Tune in to the script
you could adapt it to use words with cognate equivalents in your learners’ L1. Choose a short snippet of the audio script and
Mark Hancock highlight particular features to show that
Madrid, Spain difficulty in understanding might reside in the
text itself. Set a simple task for the students to
do as they read and listen. For example:
melon hotel July April minute receipt ● Blank out key/new vocabulary. Ask the
students to use the language on either side to
guess the word or its general meaning.
coffee surprise nation advice insect ● Colour-code pronouns and get the students to
guess or identify what they refer to.
● Use sub-script to illustrate a couple of places
dessert salad design airport machine model where a speaker uses a low key (eg when they
use fillers like you know, or repeat or
introduce a rephrasing). Ask the students to
predict where there might be other instances.
lemon guitar colour report problem Point out that anything said in a low key
probably isn’t going to contribute much to the
content of the text, and that they could use
this time to reflect on what they’ve heard, or
alarm menu artist cartoon event sofa
to predict what might come next.
Annie McDonald
Madrid, Spain

42 • Issue 79 March 2012 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

 Primary colours Child’s play
Many language teachers shy away from using experiments in The mention of writing can often raise a groan from a
their young learner classrooms, deeming them messy and class of young learners, but this needn’t be the case.
time-consuming, with little opportunity for language learning. There are many playful ways to engage your young
I hope to prove otherwise with this simple ‘rainbow colours’ students, develop their skills and motivate them to write.
experiment, which requires very few resources and almost no
preparation. It is also a great source of emergent language. Pre-writing skills are important. Children need
practice in holding writing tools, colouring in a controlled
You will need:
● a small bowl manner, moving their hand from left to right, and tracing
● some full-fat milk and copying gradually finer shapes. Writing on mini-
● washing-up liquid whiteboards and air-, back- and hand-tracing are great
● red, blue and yellow liquid food colouring ways to get children practising gross to fine shapes and
You can use this experiment to demonstrate how primary sequences of shapes. Remember to air-trace letters in
colours form secondary colours. Here are some ideas on how reverse if you are facing the class because they will mirror
to do so: you.

1 Ask the children what their favourite colour is. At word level, children enjoy making words with letter
Can they think of anything that is usually that colour? tiles. Word snakes and word soups become writing
(eg blue – the sea, the sky) activities when children create their own or write the
words they find. Useful class warmers – such as making
2 Ask them if they have ever seen a rainbow. What colours
words from the letters in a longer word or getting the
did it have?
children to complete the end or beginning of a word in as
3 Tell them that they are going to do an experiment to many ways as they can (eg fa_____ or _____st) – are
form the colours of the rainbow. great writing practice as well as good for recycling
Show them the three bottles of food colouring. Explain vocabulary.
that these three colours make all the other colours. Ask At sentence level, word ordering, correcting errors
them what colour will appear if we mix red and yellow. and completing sentence stems are all challenging but
Do the same for the other colours.
fun writing activities. Children are engaged even more if
4 Show them the materials you have brought in. Explain they are writing about things that interest them. Create
the stages of the experiment: colourful posters with individual sentences about
a) Pour one cup of milk into the bowl. characters they know, such as Geronimo Stilton or
b) Add three drops of red food colouring at one ‘side’ of Spiderman, written on coloured strips of paper. The
the bowl. children can also write their guesses down in guessing
games and have silent dialogues, in pairs, writing
c) Add three drops of blue and three drops of yellow on
other sides. The colours should not be touching. questions and answers for each other.

d) Add a drop of washing-up liquid in the centre of the At paragraph level, ‘study and change’ activities give
bowl. confidence, with the children adapting a model to make it
their own. Encourage them to decorate their writing with
5 Ask the children what they think will happen:
images and coloured, animated text.
● Will the colours meet?
● Will they make a pattern? With freer writing, a diary is an obvious way to
● Will there be other colours? practise writing in the past. Create a monthly schedule for
extending the language they should use (eg in October,
You can ask the children to draw what they think they
will see. They can later compare this with what they five sentences in the past; in November, adding linkers
actually saw. and time expressions, etc). If the children lack ideas,
encourage them to write in the voice of a famous person.
6 Do the experiment, following the stages in 4.
There are many ways to make writing a positive
This experiment is very easy to administer and is great fun. experience for children. So find out what activities they
Repeat it as many times as you like – because the results will enjoy and see how you can adapt them to provide viable
be different each time! writing practice.
Michelle Worgan Roisin O’Farrell
Jerez de la Frontera, Spain Seville, Spain

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 79 March 2012 • 43