Puzzle it out! When I firt tarted teaching in a German Gymnaium thirty two year ago the pupil occaionally greeted me with a ong which will be familiar to many colleague The title wa: What hall we do with an Englih teacher, early in the morning? (Sung to the tune of What hall we do with a drunken ailor? The choru to the ong wa: Hoorah and exercie, hoorah and exercie, hoorah and exercie,, early in the morning! Well, a my mother alway ued to tell me: Nothing i achieved without effort, and although a lot ha happened in the field of foreign language teachin ince the eventie, even in the mot communicative language leon, there i till the need for the traditional exercie However, variety i the pice of life and there i nothing in any of the many curricula in Germany to top u whetting the pupil appetite by wrapping up the exercie in the form of a puzzle Maybe you would like to try out a few of the Legepiele on the next few page Photocopy them onto card or paper ( If you do not wih to make coloured copie, then copying them onto coloured paper or card i a good econd bet choice) Make enough et for group of two to three pupil and either put each et in an envelope or faten the piece together with a paper clip In our firt type of puzzle, four card have to be placed next to one another in uch a way that where the card touch in the middle four grammatically correct entence are formed The problem i that if you have contructed the puzzle accordingly, the pupil may find that he ha two or even three correct entence, but not four! Thi ort of puzzle can alo be ued for reviing vocabulary:the pupil have to place the card next to one another o thatr pair of oppoite, collocation, ynonym,etc are formedi have included a few example with object pronoun, reflexive pronoun; a few, a little, much, many, etc,phraal verb and quetion tag It i, of coure, poible to increae the number of card, but in order to avoid too much frutration, the pupil hould be told the poition of at leat one or two of the card In the example included here, I have indicated which card i the middle card of nine The claic Chinee puzzle of tangram can alo be adapted to help our pupil revie and practie vocabulary and tructure in an amuing way With only even geometrical hape - the o-called tan -a variety of animal and object can be produced A in the quare, the pupil have to place the hape in uch a way that the word or part of entence on the part of the hape touching each other fit If you tell them the animal or object they hould have in front of them, they can check if they were right Dear Colleague, I hope that the example here will inpire you to think up more example yourelve Your incerely, ernard rown
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TANGRAMS