Doodling for Complex Sentences

Are your students struggling with making sentences more complex?

Many students can write simple sentences, and run-on sentences, but they struggle with writing solid complex sentences.

This written activity is a fun way to get students to sculpt more complex sentences using relative clauses and transition words.

Before ANY of this, my students have learned different transition words, how to use them where to use them relative pronouns, etc.

Pre-Activity:  
I usually start by drawing a few random doodles on the board. describe what a doodle is. If students guess scribble, I also accept this word as appropriate.Then, I ask what they see in the doodles. Once they see how doodles can be changed into different forms, we are ready to start!

Activity: This can be arranged in many ways, but I like to have students sit in circles.

Step One Doodle on different pieces of paper and 

STEP ONE Each student gets a paper with a doodle drawn (Note: To make this a no prep activity, students may make the first doodle, but I find giving them a doodle tends to work out better.)

STEP TWO Each student expands on the picture. I know the picture below vague, but notice how the student turned the doodle into a rabbit!

STEP THREE (optional) Have the students write one or two words describing their picture. Again looking at the picture to the below, the student could write something like, "An animal," or, "A rabbit,"

Have a box of transition words and relative prnounouns

STEP FOUR The students pass the paper to another student. The student will form a sentence describing the picture: "The rabbit is tall"

STEP FIVE Pass the paper again. This time students also take (or are given) a piece of paper with a random connecting word.  They are told to find a way to make the sentence longer using that word, "The rabbit is tall; however, he is fat."

STEP FIVE  There are multiple ways to do this. I like having students pass the doodling paper to the right, and their connecting word to the left. The students then needed to add another word to the sentence, "The rabbit, who is furry, is tall; however, he is fat."

STEP SIX At this point you can continue having the students pass connecting words to the left and doodles to the right, or you can give out new connecting words.

STEP SEVEN Continue step six until students become bored you you have had them make at least four rotations.

STEP EIGHT Finally, the last time students don't add to the sentence. Their job is to read through the sentence, which at this point can be quite complex, and make it coherent.

STEP NINE Students present the final pictures to the class as well as the final description of the picture.

 Why it Works 
Students could get bored by this, but because the pictures are so random almost every time it goes like this:
Teacher: OK pass the paper to the next student please.
Student 1: What is that?
Student 2: What did you draw?
Student 3: Oh my god this sentence is ridiculous.

They are ALWAYS entertained!

This is also a great activity to use with adjectives or any other clauses. Basically, anything where students add onto a basic sentence. If you want students to practice speaking you can have them do this in partners.

This activity isn't directly humorous, but I PROMISE you that your students will laugh at some of the doodles created and sentences written.  On August 2nd the deadline for submitting your blog to be part of the ELT Blog Carnival on Humor will CLOSE! Don't miss out!

Group Collaboration- Crossword Puzzles

This is nothing new, but my students had so much fun on Tuesday, that I wanted to share a more dynamic way to use crossword puzzles in class (rather than making them and passing them out yourself). 

This can be used for almost any grammar point, but we were reviewing relative clauses on Tuesday, so those are the examples you'll see. We use Passages Student's Book 1, which teaches defining and non-defining clauses by discussing different cities and overall travel.

After my students and I worked our way through some grammar activities, it was time for them to produce some sentences, in a collaborative and (I hope) fun way!

My board work

Setting it up (5 minutes): I wrote some sentences/ phrases using relative clauses on the board.

1 Down Something that you use to eat

1 Across _________, which is the capital of Japan, is the birthplace of Joan Fontaine.

2 Across When in Japan, you speak _________

I asked students for the answer to 1 down. One student shouted, "Spoon,! At this point I drew crossword boxes to the side. We quickly solved the puzzle (Chopsticks, Tokyo, Japanese).

Dividing the class (3 minutes)

I have a small multicultural class right now. I have five Japanese students, three Taiwanese students, and one Brazilian student. I don't really love having nine students, but at l east in this case it made the decision to divide the students into groups of three easy. I "randomly" assigned each student a group (A, B, C) to be sure that each group had as many different nationalities as possible.

The Assignment (3 minutes): You can do this many different ways, but this is how it went Tuesday in class.

Teacher: "With your group you need to come up with a theme. What was the theme of my puzzle on the board?"

Students: "Japan."
Teacher: "Yes! You're all so smart! We have been discussing traveling, so what other themes could be select?"

Here is a student making her clues

Students: "Asia" "China" "Barcelona"
Teacher: "Good, you can also do other themes like: 'Things you pack in a suitcase,' or 'Different ways to travel.' The FIRST thing you need to do as a group is  agree on a theme. The SECOND thing you will need to do is come up with some clues. How many clues will you need?"

Students: "Ten" "Five teacher" "Twenty"
Teacher: "There are three of you so 15 clues, but only 10 of them need to have relative clauses" (Note: I thought this would take 30 minutes, but students took about 50 to complete their puzzles. Looking back I would change it to 10 clues.)

Students: "How many clues?"
Teacher: *Writes on the board* "15 clues 10 relative clauses"

Students: "Does it matter how many across and how many up?"Teacher: "Nope. You may do this however you like. When you finish, you must give me TWO blank cross word puzzles. Each group will receive a crossword puzzle from every other group" (With larger classes you could have them photocopy for homework, or just make it so they trade with another group).

Students: "Can we use our phones?"
Teacher: "You can use the textbook, or your cell phones to get information. Please TALK to your partners, but don't talk too loudly, or the other teams will hear your answers."

The Work:

As students worked in groups I heard a lot of English! Some of it was the grammar point (What about, "The woman who is the queen of England?") and some of it was the task based English, "No it doesn't fit there." "That question is too different. Not our theme." etc. I originally was going to give 15  minutes to create the questions and then 5 minutes to make sure everything fit on a crossword puzzle. Maybe with an extra five minutes to actually write out the two final copies for the other groups.... the groups ended up needing about 30 minutes to make the clues and another 15 to assemble the puzzle. However, they were speaking English THE WHOLE TIME! Because they were on task, I told them they could take as much of the class as they needed.

In the end they needed all of my class-time, but I feel it was well worth it!

Complete the Puzzles

Give groups a crossword puzzle(s) from another team. Allow them five minutes to work on it as a team WITHOUT CELL PHONES. Just see how many they know. 

Then, because this isn't the main aim of the class, give them the option of using cell phones or textbooks to find answers. 

The first group to finish both crossword puzzles wins! Since my students are just visiting America for the Summer I give them American paraphernalia (there was an after Fourth of July sale where I got tons of bracelets, pencils, necklaces etc. for less than $1.00 each!), but anything works! If nothing else they win bragging rights!

 

Alternatives:

• Provide each student with a different text from which to find their answers and clues (a short article about safaris in Africa for examples)
• Use this as a literature assignment. Have students each create a crossword for a different character, or chapter.
• Make it about the school, or the teacher!
• I know there are many crossword puzzle generators on computers, but part of the reasons I like doing it by pen and paper is because students get to talk about where to put the boxes. While you could have them use an online tool, I would avoid it.
• The options are pretty close to limitless :)

There it is! A simple, and dynamic way to get students to work together, practice the target language, and create a little fun for all the students. How do you use crossword puzzles in the class?   

Cootie Catcher - Speaking Activity

Step 16

Do you struggle getting your students to talk? This is a great activity that can be used for most vocabulary and grammar you want to practice. The example here was done with colors, and fruits. At the end you'll see one done with weather and emotions (so probably A1 or A2 on the CEFR scale). You can make this more complex for higher level students as well!

You can also use this to have students review listening (you verbally give directions and they have to listen and follow them). Depending on the age level and whether they have made these before, this takes between 5 to 20 minutes.


Follow steps 1-15 from the last post (or check out the video on this post).

Step 17 Draw the points

From there follow these directions (you can click on the pictures to make them bigger). NOTE: These are the simplified directions; with higher level students, feel free to omit what you feel can go unsaid:

16. Unfold the paper; it should look like the photo on the upper left (the colors have been added to make the creases stand out).

17. Have your students locate the 8 small triangles in the middle.
Each triangle will get one drawing.  Either a sad face, a happy face, a bomb, or star. There should be 3 sad faces, 3 happy faces, one bomb and one star in total. 

Step 21 draw a category

18. Fold the four bigger triangles to the center (making a square).

19. Flip the paper over.

20. Have your students find the four squares.

21. In each square have them draw one ________ (whatever you want them to practice: countries, toys, prepositions, school supplies, etc.). In this case fruits.

Step 24 Draw a different category

22. Flip the paper over again.

23. Have them find the 8 triangles.

24. Draw (or write) 8 different things. In this case colors.

Now your students are ready to play!

Rules of the game

Question 1

General Rules

1. ONLY ENGLISH may be spoken! Students found speaking a language other than English will lose all of their points.
2. Students should speak in grammatically correct COMPLETE sentences to play. If their partner catches a mistake they may say, "Can you repeat that?" or, "Come again?" or anything else they have learned so that their partner can restate the sentence.

How to Play

1. Find a partner
2. Ask the partner a question (For lower levels, "Do you like fruit?" For higher levels, "If you could ban one of these four fruits from the world which would it be?")

   

   Question 2

3. Listen to your partners answer, (For lower levels, "Yes, I like apples." For higher levels, "Oranges should be banned because they take forever to peel!")
4. Move the cootie catcher the number of syllables/ letters their answer has (app-les: two syllables, or a-p-p-l-e-s: 6 letters)
5. Ask them another question, (Again lower level, "What's best?" Higher level, "What color do you think is overused today?")
6. Listen to their answer (Lower level, "Yellow is best" Higher level, "Yellow is used far too much because companies think it makes us hungry. Think about it, Burger King, McDonald's, they all use yellow")
7. Open the

   

   Final Answer

   triangle flap to find a happy face, sad face, bomb or star.
8. Switch partners and repeat.
9. Find a new partner and repeat

SCORING

• A smiley face is worth 1 point
• A sad face is worth -1 point
• A bomb means you lose all your points
• A star means you get 5 points

The purpose of the game is to get 10 points!

SCORING VARIATIONS

Template

• I used to put the 6 faces, star and bomb on a piece of paper. Students cut them out and then put them on the cootie catcher. This made sure they got the number of each correct.
• Make a different scoring system (maybe the star is worth two and a sun is wroth 5)
• Make the goal to talk to everyone in the class, not get points (in this case it is usually better with higher level students as you can practice telling fortunes or giving proverbs instead of getting points).

OTHER VARIATIONS

• When I did something like this with my really little ones (3 years old) I pre-folded all of them.
• Give them a pre-printed cootie catcher to start. When they have the folds "pre-written" on a piece of paper they tend to fold faster. For example the template to the right could be used to review emotions and the weather.
• Often to start the class we brainstorm as much of the relevant vocabulary as we can think of drawing pictures on the board. This gives them a visual to look at later when they are designing their cootie catcher.
• Bring magazines in and have them put pictures of celebrities on it. This can work with questions like, "If you had to become a celebrity which one would you become?" or just, "Who do you like?"
• It can help to draw a sample on the board, but you risk students copying it directly so I like to draw it with some blanks (like above) to encourage creativity.
• If you make them generic enough this is a great filler game. Just plug in whatever new grammar topic you learned and have them use it at the end of class. For example: If you just learned relative phrases ask, "What do you think is Paris Hilton's favorite weather?" "Paris Hilton, who loves to tan, likes it sunny."

Would you ever use cootie catchers in class? How do you use cootie catchers in class?