Today my teacher gave me....

For most of our Prathom 6 students writing is the most difficult skill to learn and the one that they dislike the most.

So, to create a bit of excitement and interest in a writing exercise we bought each student a piece of fruit or a vegetable and placed it on their desks. This got their attention! And, once they understood that they would get to eat what they had been given after they had written about it, they were keen to begin!

For some of the students it was the first time that they had seen some of the fruit (peaches and nectarines for example) so there was some vocabulary to be learnt. Also the students needed to learn other vocabulary such as seeds, shiny, dull, hairy and on the inside/outside. Also we tried to encourge the use of 'and' to improve their writing ability.

This class was a big success; most of the students produced good work and all tried to produce their best writing. It was a very, very noisy class though!!

The five stories immediately following this post show examples of the students work.


Teachers Ann and Philip

Terk, Mattayom 3, Writing Test

The picture story below (click to enlarge) was originally made to be used as a speaking test. However, we have used it as a test of writing skills with the students asked to write what has happened in the story. Before beginning the students are given help, depending on their ability, to write the story. For example at lower levels the students may be pre-taught the appropriate vocabulary and tense form, and given questions to answer to guide their story-telling.


From Cambridge Young Learners English Tests, Movers 3, Second edition.

www.cambridge.org





The story below is by Terk and shows work that is almost completely his own- the teacher has helped with the correct usage of only a few words and verbs. One or two errors remain.

Last week a father and son went to the forest. The father's name was John and the son's name was Jack. During the time that they went to the forest the weather was so cool. They stopped near the river. John looked around the river. He saw many big trees and two elephants. Then he said, "O.K. Jack we are fishing here." Then Jack and John fished in the river but their fishing rod was broken. Then they couldn't fish any more.

John and Jack looked in their bucket. John said, "Oh, Jack, today there isn't any fish for eating. Now what will we do?" Then the elephant walked to John and Jack. It saw the fish in the river then sucked the fish and put it in the bucket for John and Jack.

Jack saw that and then said, "Thank you Mr. Elephant", and Jack spoke to John, "Today we have fish for eating, ha, ha, ha."