Editorial
Dear Ms Kryszewska,

During a Pilgrims course my colleagues and I followed during two weeks in June, we were invited to come up with some activities ourselves, and test them on the participants. Our teacher trainer, Paul Davis, more or less urged us to put the ideas into an article and send it to you for publication on the HLT website. I hope you find it good enough to be published. I have enclosed both the article and the illustration that is defined in the article with this mail.

With kind regards,
Alex Schonewille, E-mail: schonewille.a@gmail.com

Pilgrims at work…

Iwona Grajner, Poland, Geert Groot Koerkamp, Netherlands, Ruud Giesbers, Netherlands, Agata Murzynska, Poland, Caterina Sbrana, Italy, Alex Schonewille, the Netherlands.

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Introduction
Activity 1: Guess my name!
Activity 2: Fill in Rationale
Rationale

Introduction

Pilgrims courses can be really inspiring. Not only is there room for learning all about (new) methodologies and being creative, there is also time to put your new ideas into practice. On the course Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers in June 2012, given by Paul Davis, the authors of this article came up with the two activities described below.

Activity 1: Guess my name!

Outcome

This is an exercise in active listening and productive speaking. By listening carefully and asking questions, pupils try to find the name (the identities) of the character each group member has in mind.

Level

Elementary and above.

Before class

• Put a maximum of 6 chairs in a circle (facing outward).
• Choose a song to play during the exercise.

In class

1. Six learners sit down on the chairs. The teacher walks around the group while giving the instructions.
2. Each learner thinks of a famous character that everybody would know.
3. The learners have to find out what character the other learners have in mind by asking questions without looking at each other.
4. The rest of the learners watch from the classroom. They participate in the activity by listening carefully and join in at the end, when everybody guesses the secret identities.
5. The learners stand up and walk around the chairs clockwise as long as the music is playing.
6. When the teacher stops the music, the learners sit down on the nearest chair.
7. * One of the chairs is a ‘secret chair’ (this changes each round).
   * When a learner sits down on this secret chair (determined by the teacher!!) the other learners can ask questions to reveal the identity.
   * The learner on the secret chair has to answer these questions truthfully, without giving away the name.
   * Make sure the pupils cannot see each other, so they will have to listen very carefully to each other.
8. Questions are asked for about 30 seconds. After that the music is started again and the learners start walking, even if the identity is not guessed.
9. This procedure is repeated a couple of times, but each time with a different secret chair.
10. After about 15 rounds, the learners get a sheet of paper and write down the names of the characters they think they know.
11. Each learner reveals their secret identity and the answers are checked. The learner who guessed the most answers correctly is the winner.

Variation

• There’s one chair too few. The person who remains standing when the music stops has to answer questions. (as in ‘musical chairs’)
• All learners in the classroom do the activity in groups of 6. (This can only be done if there is enough space!)

Comment

The teacher is very important in the process, for they’re the ones who decide which chair is the secret one. They can allot the secret chair to the same pupil more than once and therefore manipulate pupils’ speaking.

The time limit for asking questions is very important. An identity should not be guessed after the first round, because a learner might be in the secret chair for a second or even a third time.

Activity 2: Fill in Rationale

Outcome

This is an activity where learners read a text co-operatively.

Level

Any (depending on the text)

Before class

• Select a text or a short poem suitable for the level of the class and create gaps.
• Make a list of the words you have taken out in random order.
• Make photocopies of the gap text and the word list for half the number of pupils.
• Make photo copies of the complete text for the other half of the students.

In class

1. Learners sit in 2 concentric circles, facing each other. (the outer ring facing inwards, the inner circle facings outwards – see illustration).
   
2. The teacher hands out the gap text and the word list, but only to the learners in the inner circle.
3. The learners on the outer ring have the complete text. They do NOT know where the gaps in the other version of the text are.
4. The inner circle learners try to fill in the gaps. The outer circle learners can give them clues to lead them to the correct answer, but they cannot give the answers themselves.
5. After every 1-2 minutes, the teacher gives a signal and the learners on the outer circle move one chair to the right. Learners continue the exercise with another partner.
6. This changing partners is repeated a couple of times, until most learners have completed the text.
7. The learners compare their answers to make sure they have the correct ones.

Variation

• To make this exercise more difficult, the teacher can limit the time the learners on the outer circle can study the text to 3 minutes. They then have to hand in the text and help the learners on the inner circle from memory.
• Another version is to give the pupils on the outer ring exactly the same information as those on the inner circle (the gap text and the word list), thus creating equality between the learners.

Comment

In the basic version of this exercise, the roles of the learners in the two circles is not the same. This way the teacher can differentiate between strong readers and those who have more difficulty reading.

Rationale

These two activities were developed during the course, but hopefully it is only the beginning of our attempts to put the newly learnt theories into practice.

Please check the Methodology for Teaching Spoken Grammar and English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.