ACCESS PROGRAM LESSON:

PRACTICING NARRATIVE TENSES THROUGH WRITING CHAIN STORIES - GRAMMAR AND COLLABORATIVE WRITING ACTIVITY Time & Length of Class: Number of Ss: Major skills: Objectives (Students Will Be Able To -SWBAT): 90 minutes 15-20 writing, collaborative writing, speaking, error correction - to practice and use narrative tenses in sentence to tell/write a brief story - to practice writing and improve writing skills - to review and practice grammatical structures: using past tenses in writing a story - to practice error correction - to show imagination in writing (not just to complete a task) - to engage students into alternative writing exercise which should be interesting, motivating and encouraging - to improve students attitude toward writing (for a lot of students learning to write in a foreign language is often difficult, frustrating and a boring activity for students) - to make writing an interactive experience (because students become involved as a group, yet they are encouraged to express themselves as individuals)

Aims:

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION First, the teacher will present narrative tenses and their uses and students will be able to discuss and give their examples. The teacher will also prepare some exercises to check the students understanding and to have them practice narrative tenses. Then, to practice further the students will write the chain story which involves group story development. The students are divided into groups of 4, 5, or 6 students. The students sit in a circle. Each student begins a story, and after a specific time allotment, the story is passed along to another student. The next student makes his/her contribution and passes the story again. This pattern is repeated until all the stories have gone full circle and each student has his/her original paper. The end result of this activity is several stories, each completely different, written by the same group of students. After the writing has been completed, the students remain in groups, reading, correcting and discussing the stories. The teacher may decide to ask each student to read his/her story aloud or ask each group to pick its favorite story to read aloud. The greatest advantage is that chain stories are interesting. They make writing enjoyable for the students. If students are interested, they will be motivated and will not regard writing as a boring activity. Writing is an important aspect of English and therefore must be taught. Students must practice writing skills as they would practice pronunciation and listening skills. Teachers cannot ignore writing because it is a source of student frustration, but should find ways to help students improve their writing and raise motivation. Teachers must demonstrate to students that writing is lively, active and enjoyable form of communication. This can only be done by giving students choices which allow them to express themselves, and to have fun in doing so. Chain stories have positive effects which reduce student apprehension toward writing and which promotes creativity.