Collaborative Writing

This activity is based on a photograph I took so that students do not know where it was taken or who are the people in the picture. This enhances their creative thinking.

Focus: Present Simple and Present Progressive. Expressions of deduction: I think… / Maybe… /This person might be…

Level: Pre-Intermediate to advanced

Steps:

*Show the students the image (display on the screen) and help them notice the people who appear in the scene. Ask different students to describe where each person is (eg: at the bar, on the balcony, in the street). What they are doing

*Students work in group and choose one of the persons in the photo and think about him/her for a couple of minutes.

*Write some questions on the board so that students can practise different tenses:

Ex: What’s my name? Where am I (city, country, etc. not the exact place in the scene so as not to be discovered)? How am I feeling now? Why am I here? What am I doing at the moment?, etc.

*Students discuss the answers to the questions and write them down while the teacher monitors their writing.

*Students complete the narration. One member from each group reads the text and the members of the other groups have to guess who is the person describing the scene.

Comments:

Since students have to agree on whose stance they are going to take, and also on many of the other answers to the questions presented by the teacher, they will be developing their communication skills. They will have to listen to each other actively. This means they will have to understand what others say, respect their points of view and put forward their own point of view trying to persuade others of the value of their own perspective. This also helps them develop linguistic skills.

When students have to guess the person chosen by other groups, they will have to think critically to make associations between the details and the image source of the description.

Hope you enjoy doing this activity in your classrooms.