29 From a Word to a Story

Note: It is very hard for me to try to write this activity in the form of instructions because it will vary immensely from group to group. I will attempt to describe how I usually conduct it, but I urge you to adapt it to your own style.

I had noticed that my students had trouble coming up with questions, especially follow-up questions. I do not know if you have noticed, but what normally happens in a classroom is a teacher asking questions and students answering them. I decided to design a student-centered activity that would encourage students to come up with follow-up questions while also engaging them in creating longer sentences in English. The one described below was the first one I used  (a group of young adults who had had about 50 hours of EFL instruction). I later used the activity with all my groups (including children), and it worked best with adolescents. I did not keep a record of all the stories my students created over time, so I am relying a lot on memory.

1. I asked the group to come up with a noun (they chose “ball”) and a name (“Billy”). I then asked them to create a sentence using “Billy” and “Ball”. They said “Billy bought a ball”. I encouraged them to make the sentence longer: “Billy bought a new blue and red soccer ball”.
2. I wrote the sentence on the board and asked students to repeat it. I then erased the sentence and asked them to dictate the sentence back to me while I wrote it again on the board.
3. I asked students to, individually, write three follow-up questions. Before they began, I elicited some examples. A student said “What did Billy buy?”.  I explained that it was not a follow-up question because I already had that information; that a follow-up question is asking for more information.  When they finished, I had students take turns dictating their questions to me. I just wrote the questions on the board. If they made any grammar mistake, I wrote the sentences on the board correctly, expressing no judgement. I noticed students going back to their notebooks and correcting their original sentence. Once in a while (and it was not really common), a student would ask me why I had written their question differently, what mistake they had made. I quickly explained and moved on. Some of the questions were duplicates or were just structured slightly differently, but asked for the same information. I just wrote the question next to its equivalent (separated by a slash). Sometimes, questions were irrelevant, but I wrote all of them on the board. Notice that I did not attempt to answer any of the questions. Here is a list of the questions they asked (as far as I can remember):

How old is Billy?

Why did he buy a new ball?

How much was it?

Where did he buy it?

Was the ball big or small?

Where is Billy from?

Does he like playing soccer?

Where did he get the money?

Was it his first ball?

Was Billy happy?

What does he play with the ball?

Is he going to play ball with his friends?

After all the questions were on the board, I started to elicit answers, and I followed the questions in the order they appeared on the board. So, my dialogue with students went something like this (T=teacher; S= any student):

T: So, Billy bought a new red and blue ball. How old is Billy?

S: 12

T: Okay. 12. 12-year-old Billy bought a new red and blue ball. Why did he buy a new ball?

S: old ball “furou” (had a puncture)

T: 12-year-old Billy bought a new red and blue ball because his old ball was punctured.

At this point I interrupted and asked: how was the ball punctured?

S: a dog “mordeu” (bit) the ball.

T: Okay. So, 12-year-old Billy bought a new red and blue ball because a big dog bit and punctured his old ball. Oh, my, how did this happen?

Note: I introduced the new follow-questions. I didn’t want to interrupt the creativity flow and also wanted to show interest in their story, so I asked the questions myself. Alternatively, I could have said: Could someone ask the class how the ball was punctured?

S: the ball “caiu” (fell) in the yard “do vizinho” (neighbor).

T: oh, the ball fell in the neighbor’s yard.  12-year-old Billy’s ball fell in the neighbor’s yard, and a big dog bit and punctured it. So, Billy bought a new red and blue ball. How did the ball fall in the neighbor’s yard?

S: kicked ball

T: Who kicked the ball? Billy?

S: Yes

T: Okay. 12-year-old Billy kicked his old ball, and it fell in the neighbor’s yard. A big dog bit the ball and punctured it. So, Billy bought a new red and blue ball. What was he doing when he kicked the ball?

S: play in street with your friends.

T: Oh, he was playing in the street with his friends. Let’s see our story. 12-year-old Billy was playing ball in the street with his friends. He kicked the ball very hard, and it fell in the neighbor’s yard. A big dog bit and punctured it. So, Billy bought a new red and blue ball. How much was it?

Note: Notice that I am repeating the story and including the new information.

S: 50 reais (Brazilian currency)

T: . 12-year-old Billy was playing ball in the street with his friends. He kicked the ball very hard, and it fell in the neighbor’s yard. A big dog bit and punctured it. So, Billy bought a new red and blue ball. It was 50 reais.

And so on.

The final story ended up something like this:

I then asked students to tell me the story. I asked one student to begin and another to finish. I did this several times until I felt confident that they could retell it with ease. Finally, I asked them to sit in pairs (or trios) and, collaboratively, try to write the story down as close to the original as possible.

Over time, my students became progressively more proficient at creating their own stories. So, after creating the original sentence and writing the questions on the board, I placed students in groups and let them use the questions to create their own stories, which they then presented to the whole class.