Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 2; March 02

Designing Words

(coursebook section)

By Herbert Puchta and Mario Rinvolucri

Level: beginner to intermediate ( vocab revision )

• Ask the students to work on their own and retrieve 20 words they have half forgotten from two units three back in the textbook. So if you are doing Unit 10, ask them to go back to units 6 and 7.

• Ask the student to work in pairs and " design" the words on the page in front of them, for example a student might write "ladder"

                                  r
                                 e
                                d
                               d
                              a 
                             L

  or the word "mouth", designed to make a mouth.

• Ask the students to get up mill and share their designs.

Acknowledgement: I learnt the designer idea from Mitch Legutke at a workshop in Hessen, Germany in the early 80's ; Morgan and I used it in Vocabulary, OUP 1986.