Rationale
I use this activity over the course of 2 lessons to reinforce and help students become more comfortable with how to utilise the lining phrases and words they are supposed to recognise and be able to use in the First exam. It finishes with some of the students' work on the walls, which I find nice as it's often only primary age kids who have their stuff put up on display. Another benefit is that it means that they have these example sentences up as a reference. Later on in the term I can also go back and build on them, helping the students practise turning ideas into paragraphs.
First Lesson
Before the lesson
I write out a number of incomplete sentences using the language I'd like to focus on on strips of paper. For my current First Exam Preparation Class I used:
even if
despite
in spite of
in case
Although
Even though
However,
As you can see in the first photo I sometimes finished the clause around the word and sometimes not. For mine, I wanted them to see the different structures that follow despite/in spite of. I also try to mix the type of sentences, some are light hearted and some are more like the kind of thing they might write in an essay. There are 9 in the photo because in this class I have 8 students. The rule for the activity is to create one half sentence for each student and one for yourself.
During the lesson
I hand out one strip to each student and keep one for myself. I ask the students to finish the sentence in any way they want, whilst I myself finish the sentence in front of me. Clarify that they should just write in normal sized handwriting.
Once everyone has finished everyone passes their paper to the student to their left (or right, depending on which way you want to go round).
Now everyone has a new piece of paper they do as before, finish the sentence in any way they want. Clarify that what they are writing follows from the original and they should just ignore what their friend has written. They can, of course, read it but it shouldn't influence what they themselves write.
Repeat until everyone has written on every piece of paper.
As you are part of the circle if you have time as the papers come across your desk try to correct anything that needs correcting but don't worry too much about this at this stage as you won't have enough time.
Collect in the pieces of paper. They should look like they do in the second photo.
Notes
I normally use this as a warmer.
Second Lesson
Before the lesson
As you can see in the second photo you now have your students work. This is when, with the luxury of time you don't have during the lesson, I have a look at what they have written in order to correct it and make a note of anything I now feel the need to go over specifically.
During the lesson
Hand out one strip to each student, ask them to read all of the sentences and put a star/smiley face/tick/whatever mark they wish next to their favourite or favourites.
Pass and repeat. This means everyone gets to read everyone's sentences.
Once they get back the sentence they started wish ask them to tally the scores and circle/select the winner. If their is a tie they have the power to pick which one (or just circle both).
You collect them in. Each strip of paper should now look like that in the third photo.
After the lesson
On new, clean strips of paper write out the winning sentences and display them on the walls. If you want/have time the students can write them out, I did it myself in order to save time.
Follow up
Later in the academic year I am planning on going back to these sentences and use them as topic sentences and have the students build these into paragraphs. I'll do a blog post so watch this space!
Advanced Exam Preparation Class
I also did this with my Advanced Exam
Preparation class after I noticed they weren't using many linking phrases in their writing. After doing this I noticed an improvement in their awareness of the importance of these types of phrases and how comfortable they were in using them.
With my Advanced class I used:
contribute to
in light of the above, I believe
Thanks to
we should make every effort to
could result in
needless to say
lead to
In addition to
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