One ice-breaker type of instructional activity that I have seen over the years is "Two Truths and A Lie." Students take turns saying or submit three statements about themselves, and then other students guess which statement is the lie. More interesting to me, however, is how topics can develop from this, and how potential opportunities for community-building can emerge. In an online summer ninth grade writing course that I just started teaching, I adapted this activity so that the "lie" statement could become more than just a random idea. My twist is: "Two Experiences and A Wish." Here's a screen copy of the slide I created and used with my students: It was only while we did the activity together when I added the "/ed" because some of the students were sharing routine activities they currently do in their daily lives ("I pet my dog every morning") and static truths about their current life ("I have a big dog"), while other statements were about past one-off and/or routine experiences ("I have visited Japan many times"). The wishes were delightful and surprising. Wishes in included "I study marine biology every day" and "I sleep in on weekends." Magically, and I'm thinking about Conversation Analysis, where we often see people give accounts to clarify what they mean or why they said something, our experiences and wishes sparked additional questions from me and from classmates. I didn't tell anyone to ask additional questions after the contributor confirmed which was the wish, and I didn't tell contributors to say more about their experiences or wishes. I didn't have to. Each statement was tied to an identity they they chose to share with the group, so any hesitation, head tilt, or potential for misunderstanding led to the contributor saying a little more about what caused them to do or wish for a particular experience. In short, it got us talking about ourselves, and learning just a little more about each other. For a language class, especially during the first four semesters, I think "Two Experiences and a Wish" could work just fine. The teacher can share a short list of supporting language patterns for students to choose from, so they can be clear about when (past, present), and how often (once, twice, routine) each experience has/can happen/ed. Of course, in a language classroom, an ever-present goal is to learn language for proficiency. But beyond use of language forms, if we teach communicatively, then we need to use language to talk about topics of interest and complete tasks that have identifiable endings. This small adjustment, from a random lie to a self-identifying wish, allows everyone in the classroom to use language to share and learn about each other, for the goals of (possible) community-building, lowering anxiety, and increasing motivation.
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Reed Riggs (Author)
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