Classroom Activity 10

Classroom Activity 10

The Biggest Fish Ever Caught

Level: Intermediate.

Time required: 90 minutes.

Goals: To become familiar with the “fish story” genre, in which the storyteller exaggerates his or her accomplishments; to tell an original fish story and build spoken fluency.

Materials: scratch paper and a pen or pencil

Optional materials: a picture of a person fishing, a chalkboard and chalk, a large piece of paper and markers.

Procedures:

1. Activate students’ background knowledge around the subject of fishing. You can show a picture of a person fishing and have students

write down as many words as they can to describe what they see.

Or you can mime the action of fishing and ask if anyone can guess what verb you are acting out; then give students two minutes to write down fishing-related vocabulary they know. Have students share their vocabulary lists with a partner and explain in English the meaning of

terms their partners do not know. After a few minutes of discussion, the pairs report their combined lists to the class. 

2. Read or summarize the following information for your students: Today we are going to listen to a fish story, and then each of you will have a chance to tell one of your own.  Fish stories are entertaining because the storyteller uses a lot of exaggeration.

3. Ask if anyone can define the word exaggeration. If no one can, share example sentences that incorporate exaggeration to lead the class to the meaning: the history of the world!’ tonight.

It will take me 10 years to finish it.” explain that exaggeration is a statement that makes something or someone seem to have much more of a characteristic or quality (for example, seeming larger, or better, or worse) than it/he/she really does.

4. Tell students you are going to read them a fish story called “The One That Got Away” (see page 48). The first time they listen, they should simply try to identify the main idea. To focus their attention, you can write Wh– question words on the board and ask students to identify the main character, the setting, and the main events. Remind students that they don’t have to listen for every detail this first time.

5. As you read, use miming and gestures to act out parts of the story with challenging vocabulary.  Be dramatic and have fun! You can also draw pictures on the board or on a large piece of paper to illustrate parts of the story (e.g., a fish nibbling on bait at the end of the line).

6. After you have read the story once, ask for student volunteers to share their answers to the Wh– questions.

7. Read the story again and have students focus on parts that seem untrue or unbelievable.  Ask students to write them down as they listen.

8. Have students share with a partner or in a small group the

exaggerated elements they identified. If you hear a student correctly

identify an exaggerated element, ask him or her to share it  with the

class later. When you review as a class, make sure the students

identify the following exaggerations: when the story happened.

It weighed more than everyone in the room combined. the fish

into the boat. bye to each other.

9. Read the following information to your class: In a fish story, the storyteller exaggerates his or her own accomplishments.

Fish stories do not always have to be about fishing, though.

Think about your proudest achievement, or something you would like to accomplish— like running a marathon, or writing a novel, or becoming the president of your student government. Imagine that

you have achieved this goal.

Tell a fish story about your real or imagined

accomplishment. Take 10 minutes to outline your story and make 

notes about the details you plan to exaggerate.

Tell your story to a partner.

10. Circulate the classroom as students are brainstorming. Provide

guidance as necessary. Make sure students are not writing complete

sentences. Remind them that this is a chance to practice

speaking with fluency.

11. Have students share their fish stories with a partner or two.

When students are listening, they should try to identify elements

that seem exaggerated or impossible. Afterwards, they should

check their understanding with the storyteller.

Then students swap roles and repeat.

12. When students are finished telling their stories,  you ask a few

volunteers to summarize their stories,

Effective interactive teaching strategies to

 encourage speech in your classroom

First, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your classroom.

1. Think, pair and share

Set a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion

in their voice. This way your students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.

2. Brainstorming

Interactive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The process is useful for generating

creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn to work together, and above all,  learn from each other. You’ll be surprised by all the great ideas they come up with!

3. Buzz session

Participants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic. Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and collaboration among the students within each group.

Everyone should learn from each other’s input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the conversation. Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the activities in different categories:

• Individual student activities
• Student pair activities
• Student group activities
• Interactive game activities

Individual student activities

4. Exit slips

These are best used at the end of the class session. You’ll ask the students to write for one minute on a specific

question. It might be generalized to “what was the

most important thing you learned today”. Then, you can decide if you are going to open up a conversation about it in your next class. You can ask them if they still remember what they wrote down. Need a digital exit slip template?

5. Misconception check

Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the correct answer when given a false fact.

It’s useful when going over a previous lesson. It encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.

6. Circle the questions

Make a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions

(make them specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones

they don’t know the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.

Create corners concerning different questions that were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners, individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each student a different and personalized order to visit the corners.

7. Ask the winner

Ask students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised)

.

Then, all other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and how to solve it next time.

Student pair activities

8. Pair-share-repeat

After a Think-pair-share experience, which I’ve written about in the first interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.

9. Teacher and student

Let students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair up your students and assign them 2 roles.

One of them is the teacher, and the other the student.

The teacher’s job is to sketch the main points, while the student’s job is to cross off points on his list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.

10. Wisdom from another

After an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to share their results. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner’s work to be interesting or exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the

work of fellow students publicly than their work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their objectives as well.

11. Forced debate

Let students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches them to look through a different colored glass once in a while.

Variation: one half of the class takes one position,the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other. Each student may only speak once so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.

12. Optimist/Pessimist

In pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study, statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic

and truly “live” the case study. You’ll discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social skills.

13. Peer review writing task

To assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second

paragraph discusses the essay’s problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner would focus on in revision if it were her essay. Students can learn a lot from each other and themselves as well! Here are 10 more creative self-assessment ideas.

Student group activities

14. Board rotation

This interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than others! Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you’ve

set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer,  they rotate to the next board. Here, they write

their answer below the first answer of the previous group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards.

Not that many boards in your classroom?

Try using tablets and BookWidgets' interactive whiteboard.

15. Pick the Winner

Divide the class into groups and let them work on the same topic/problem. Let them record an answer/strategy

on paper or digitally. Then, ask the groups to switch with a nearby group and let them evaluate their answer. After a few minutes,

allow each set of groups to merge and ask them to select the best answer from the two choices, which will be presented to the complete class.

16. Movie Application

In groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a concept or event discussed in class, trying to

identify at least one way the movie makers got it right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts,

geographical facts, biographies of famous people, …

17. Crossword puzzle

The crossword game is perfect to use as repetition activity. Choose a list of words and their description, and

BookWidgets creates an interactive crossword for you. The crossword game transforms these boring lessons into a fun experience.

Here you can read more about how to create them and for which topics you can use them (not only for teaching languages)!

18. Scrabble

Use the chapter (or course) title asthe pool of letters from which to make words (e.g., mitochondrial DNA),

and allow teams to brainstorm as many words relevant to the topic as possible. You can also actually play scrabble and ask students to form words from the newly learned vocabulary.

19. Who/what am I?

Tape a term or name on the back of each student. You can also tape it on their forehead. Each student walks around the room, asking “yes or no” questions to the other students in an effort to guess the term. Of course, the term has something to do with your lesson topic.

20. Bingo

Bingo is a fun game that can be used for all sorts of exercises: language exercises, introductory games, math exercises, etc. Take a look at this blog post with all the different bingo possibilities here. You’ll be surprised about how many interactive lesson activities you can do with just one game