Monday 13 June 2011

Moments of Truth: End of term/course ideas

In the last session of the DELTM, we looked at ways of enhancing Moments of Truth, particularly at the beginning and end of courses. You will find below a list of suggestions for end-of-course activities from the IATEFL BESIG Yahoo Group (besig@yahoogroups.com). Please feel free to add your own suggestions and comments on the activities.

1 Give out certificates at a formal ceremony. Show a slide show of the course with musical accompaniment.

2 A mobile video project where students plan and film a short piece to show and represent their life together and what they learned on the course.

1)Put them in groups
2)Explain the types of scenes they may want (interview, fly-on-the wall, action, still shot)
3)Have them create a voice over monologue perhaps
4)Give them time to film it
5)Come back, swap phones, watch the films and discuss.

6)After class ask students to upload them to a blog or video page like Winkball. They can then add video comments too.

It can be adapted to any topic and I think interviews with classmates would work well.

3 Just in case you might want a writing task, ask your students to write their names on a card/piece of paper (you could buy some nice postcards for them to write on or just provide some fancy coloured paper). The task is to write something personal for each group member. The cards are passed round so that everybody will get a chance to write a thank you/farewell text on each of the cards. What every student takes home in the end is a nice and usually very positive Course Souvenir.

4 As a warmer you can use Intermediate Communication Games (Jill Hadfield) Activity 40: The Last Game. Find someone you would like to thank for......

5 Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury's "Teaching Unplugged" is full of suggestions for speaking activities. I especially like their "Pocket Pecha Kucha" idea.