ANSWER: Congratulations! Creating an atmosphere in which learners build positive relationships with you and each other is an important goal of language teachers. Our suggestion for a backdrop of an end-of-the-year celebration is a display of individual posters based on the vocabulary activity, "My Name Crossword".
TITLE: "My Name Crossword"
LEVEL: A2 +
SKILLS: vocabulary recall, revision and building, development of aids to reading and spelling skills, the critical thinking skill of self-evaluation, introspection, building self-knowledge and self-esteem, celebrating friendship, peer sharing of creations.
TIME REQUIRED: do activity and draft in 15 minutes. In a second session, make individual posters and set up classroom display (20 minutes).
MATERIALS: an A4 sheet of lined paper for activity. To make the poster either A4 or A3 colored/white papers (one for each learner), depending on number of learners and wall space. Colored markers to distinguish 'across & down' letters.
PROCEDURE:
1. Ask learners to work individually and to brainstorm 5 - 7 adjectives to describe your good qualities. (Sandra's example: sincere, loving, attentive, friendly, helpful, eager, enthusiastic).
2. On lined paper and down the centre of the page, learners write the letters of their names vertically (as 'down' words are written in a crossword puzzle). Suggest that they use a colored marker to write these letters.
S
A
N
D
R
A
3. Now, from their list of positive adjectives, ask them to choose those which share a letter in their name and write them in an 'across' direction, as below. This will be a rough draft for each learner's poster.
SINCERE
A
FRIENDLY
D
EAGER
ATTENTIVE
4. At this point, you can collect or check the drafts which individual learners have made. Following this or during a subsequent class session, learners can create their Name Crossword Posters. Each learner will have the size of paper you have designated. To start with, ask that they use a pencil and ruler to line up the letters of their name and the adjectives they've chosen. Once all letters are 'plotted' correctly, they can use colored markers to trace over the penciled lines.
5. Pair Sharing: Learners, on their own initiative, can share their posters with one partner at a time, giving examples from their social practices and behavior to support the adjectives they have chosen to describe themselves. You can coordinate a fluid re-pairing among the learners, if appropriate.
6. Display: On a classroom wall, with an "Our Team" banner and a slogan like "We work together to improve our English", stick each of the posters once completed. You can photograph the wall display and upload the photo onto your school's website or send a copy to each learner to include in his/her e-portfolio, to remember what fun and support he/she enjoyed during the school year!
RATIONALE: This activity's procedure moves from individual work, to pair sharing to a whole class celebration, reinforcing the truth of the realization that we need to work together with others to learn a foreign language pleasantly and effectively.
Suzanne and Lilika
May 2019
