Writing Tip nº3: THE CASUAL SYNTAX

Chapter ten of 'The Grammar of Fantasy' by Gianni Rodari talks about Dadaist and Surrealist games to look for a 'fantastic theme' that will help your class to write stories.

An easy one to set up in the classroom is the Casual Sintax.

The students, one after another, have to secretly answer these 6 questions:

question 1: WHO WAS HE/SHE/IT?

question 2: WHERE WAS HE/SHE/IT?

question 3: WHAT WAS HE/SHE/IT DOING?

question 4: WHAT DID HE/SHE/IT SAY?

question 5: WHAT DID PEOPLE SAY ABOUT HIM/HER/IT?

question 6: HOW DID THE STORY END?

The first pupil answers the question and folds the paper like an accordion. He passes the folded paper to his classmate, who will answer the second question, fold the paper again and pass it to the third one and so on until the paper accordion will reach the sixth and last student of the chain. Once he has answered the last question you can unfold the paper and read the answers following the order of the questions. It'll be hilarious and perhaps you'll find material to write a whole story.

WRITING TIP NUMBER 5
WRITING TIP NUMBER 4

WRITING TIP NUMBER 2

WRITING TIP NUMBER 1

WE READ IT LIKE THIS blogspot.com

I would like to share with you this amazing blog about how to read illustrated stories to your children or students.  

The author, Ellen Duthie is British, but lives in Spain, and her blog includes reviews and read-aloud recordings of a selection of her favourite children's books.

Enjoy this first one: I WANT MY HAT BACK by Jon Klassen

Pay particularly attention to the rhythm, the intonation and the pronunciation. Listen to the different voices of each character that appears in the book. 

Learning these few tricks will help you to get the attention and participation of your kids during the whole story time!!!

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results. 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com