Using the Mother Tongue
The Mother Tongue as a Resource in the Foreign Language Classroom
By Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri
( Forthcoming with ETp Delta in late 2002 )

( these are Sheelagh exercises ) - Secondary and adult

Jokes

Type of Class : monolingual
Teacher : doesn't need to know students' mother tongue
Level : lower intermediate upward
Purpose: to practise freer speaking and listening

• Put students into groups of maximum 4.
• One person in each group tells their group a joke in MT
• As a group they then work on translating it into TL. At this point they can use dictionaries and ask the teacher for help.
• Jigsaw the groups so that there is at least one student from each original group in the new groups
• Students take it in turns to tell their joke in TL. When each student has finished telling their joke the group check they have understood it by telling it in MT.
• The students go back to their original groups
• Allocate one of the jokes (not their own) to each group.
  Each group then prepares to tell the joke to the rest of the class, each student telling a part.
  Student A starts by telling the first part in MT, Student B repeats this part but in TL and then tells the next part in MT. Student C then repeats this part in TL and then tells the next part in MT. They proceed like this with Student A finally re-telling the last part in TL.

It's a good idea to work on jokes before students go abroad to give them confidence in this social skill.