Purpose:

To help students learn and recall language in a chunk; to practice speaking

Preparation time: 

5 minutes

Materials: 

A reading text with which the class is familiar; whiteboard and markers or paper and pencils

Preparation:

Choose some useful chunks of language from the text that summarize the events in the story. A chunk is a group of words that together has meaning and could occur in language again.

Example story beginning:

Last week, Jose didn’t feel well. He made an appointment with his doctor at the local clinic. When he went to the clinic, the receptionist told him to have a seat in the waiting room.

Example language chunks:

Didn’t feel well

Made an appointment

The local clinic

Have a seat in the waiting room

Procedure:

1. Elicit the story from the students. (They should not have the story in front of them.) As you get them to tell the story, write the chunks on which you want to focus on the board.
2. Divide the class into pairs.
3. Learners take turns contributing one sentence of the story at a time in pairs, using the prompts on the board to help them.

Variations:

With lower levels, you could use simple drawings to illustrate the chunks of language. Higher levels could write out the story after retelling it orally.