I based this on "detective" styled activities I read about in the past. If I find that article again, I will credit it here! It was quite elaborate, but really exciting - there was yellow tape around an area, and students needed to figure out who had stolen a classroom item. There were clues behind this yellow tape, and students needed to think about it from different angles using target language. BRILLIANT. I always wanted to try it, but it was all too complicated and time consuming.
Instead, I needed to do some reading comprehension for my Year 7s and 8s. We were learning the topic of school timetables, and I have attached two documents. One is of Ariana's timetable and one is a set of approximately 7-8 clues that you bluetack around the around the classroom. There are intentional blanks left in the timetable document, and the students are posed with the question/mystery; "What is Ariana's favourite day of the week?"
The students must find out what the different subjects she is studying on the day, and there are clues saying what subjects she likes, etc.
The kids were really into it and raced around the room to find out! The weaker students found really liked it at first, but when there were bigger chunks of writing, they became confused and frustrated, which is where I came in and broke it down for them. A possibility is to break down the same texts into even more clues, so students won't find it as difficult.
In my attempt to make it more relatable to the kids, I called it Ariana Grande's timetable. I'm assuming this picture I've found here in the corner is Ariana Grande, because that is how OUT of date I have become with kids, because I feel like I suddenly blinked and apparently Justin Bieber is completely uncool now. ;)
Attached is documents in Mandarin and Indonesian. Feel free to use, but if you can IMPROVE it, please share with me the improved version! I would love to make this better, but not sure how, also there are probably a dozen mistakes in there.
ariana_grande_suka....docx |
arianas_timetable.docx |
billy_bob_jane_喜欢.docx |
billy_bob_jane’s_timetable.docx |