17.4.5. Reusing materials

We have just seen how one set of prompt-cards can be used to provide a whole lesson of different activities around the same topic. Other materials are also reusable round the same theme. E.g., if you go to the trouble of drawing a set of grids for an activity or take up time in a lesson getting the children to draw one, you don’t want to use for 2 minutes and then move to something else. So this single grid:

						

could be used and reused in the following ways.

• Listening activity. The children listen to a series of statements made by the teacher and then fill in the appropriate reference point on the matrix: Ann wants to be an actress. John wants to be a spaceman.

  						
  Ann					
  John	
  Jane
  Bob
  Tom
  Kate

• Speaking activities based on true/false. Once the grid’s been filled in the teacher could use it to ask true/false questions: Ann wants to be a worker. True or false?

• S imultaneous pair work:

Writing. The children use the information on their grid to make up sentences and write them down: Ann wants to be an actress.

You could spread these activities out over more than one lesson or use them in various combinations in one lesson. Either way, by this time the grids will have amply repaid the initial time taken up in drawing them.

Remember too that particular prompt-cards or even grids can act as prompts for a wide range of different phrases and examples provided we make it clear what we are doing. For example, on different occasions this card could be the prompt for several very different language exchanges.

E



.g.: Have you got a bike? Can I borrow your bike? I like cycling! Let’s go for a bike ride. Your bike is great. How much does a bike cost? Please can I have a bike? Where is my bike? Etc.

If you are going to reuse prompt-cards in this way then you will want to keep them very simple. They are probably best drawn in black, thickish lines giving an essential outline and without any writing. This is because writing tends to tie the card down to representing just one phrase.

Finally, as well as looking for different ways in which we can use one set of materials and thus reduce our preparation load, we can also reduce our thinking preparation. It is possible to do this by identifying a core of activity types that we can use and reuse in order to teach different language content.