One Fat Frog

Last week's blog was on a resource that I had tried out for the first time, to great success, to encourage the students to speak confidently and to have fun.

I am bringing a post back from the good old Posterous days, because the task makes me laugh. A lot. And when students can't do the task because they are wheezing with laughter, as a result of the task, you know you are on to a good one!

In August 2012 I wrote:

"I have based one resource on a drinking game we played on tour. Oh my word it made me laugh. Tempting as it is to enforce the command of "DRINK" when students go wrong, I think it will have to be avoided! The way it works, in English, is very simple (drinking games have to be really!!!):

• Sit students in a circle - up to 10 is probably best 
• Take turns, around the circle, to say the next word of the phrase "One fat frog jumped off the cliff aarrgghh" (one word each)
• The person after "aarrgghh" starts again but changes the 'one' to 'two'.
• Then each word has to be said twice, as follows, with each person saying only one word in the chain

"two"
"two"
"fat"
"fat"
"frogs"
"frogs"
"jumped"
"jumped"
"off"
"off"
"the"
"the"
"cliff"
"cliff"
"aarrgghh"
"aarrgghh"

•  It then becomes "three" "four" etc. If students muck up, they could do a forfeit, or star jumps, press ups etc. You choose!

 It is an excellent listening and recall game, and I am hopeful it will encourage my Year 11s not to be afraid of speaking German! I have attached the slide I will be using - in German - after a while I will remove it from the board. The sentence can be changed/manipulated etc for variation from week to week."

So back to January 2014. Following the same idea to access longer texts, particularly from the Higher paper, I ask the students - in groups - to read out loud, one word at times. It is so funny to watch, the students all listen to each other, and focus on each word in the paragraph. By the 7th or 8th line in the paragraph, the students are saying the words of the line 2-3 times each.

Year 11s were doing it in groups of 4 on Wednesday, and the fun and laughter in the room was fantastic.

In other news, I went to see Wicked just before Christmas. Apart from now wanting a green witch for a friend (apply within), I love the songs. Just love. #unlimited