Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 3; May 03

secondary and adult

Mario Rinvolucri, Pilgrims, UK

Level: upper intermediate to advanced

Preparation: ensure that each position in your computer lab has a copy of a good modern electronic dictionary, which allows students to search for words by endings as well as beginnings, so a student can find words that end in -less,- hood ,head as well as words that start with um, non, pro.

Decide which prefixes and suffixes/endings you want your students to focus on.

In class:

• Ask each student to make a list of four people they know well and like and two people they know well and dislike.

• Give them a couple of word beginnings and word endings to do dictionary searches on.
  Their task is to find words that, in some way, connect to one or other of the six people on their list. Eg: in a search for the suffix dom a particular student comes up with the words boredom and serfdom. She writes these two words down next to the name of her friend Penelope as they describe what Penelope feels about her part-time waitressing job.

• Ask the students come up with around six words per person on their lists

• Group them in fours to describe the listed people in terms of the ideas found during the dictionary search.