Tweak and adopt

Manaswini Sridhar

Here is what a middle school English teacher has to say about the variety and range of websites and activities that are available at the click of the mouse:
There are innumerable resources available on the Internet, teeming with brilliant ideas, and well-thought out creative worksheets, but unfortunately nothing seems to relate to what I am doing in the Indian context. Although it is tempting to download these freely available resources from the Internet and give them to my students to practise, I really cannot justify the time my students and I will spend on doing the activity because it does not relate to anything specific that the curriculum has outlined.

Yes, the ideas are mind-boggling and seem so simple that we repeatedly ask ourselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” But we very soon realize that it is a superfluous question to have posed because it takes time, energy, and commitment to craft a resource that is so picture-perfect. However, as teachers, we need to learn to adapt a resource in order to make our work more creative and less laborious.

In this article and in the other articles to follow, we would like to explore the available resources on the Internet and examine how they can be tweaked by the teacher to suit the level and the subject. We hope that more teachers will be driven to work on such resources and share them with our readers so that teachers will have their own reserve of resources that they can dip into whenever needed, instead of sweating over them for endless hours.

Here is an adaptation from an activity worksheet (adapted from Bridging with a Smile) that many children love doing on their own: Spot the differences. This is a fun activity that develops the child’s observation and concentration skills. In the initial stages, children may make simple observations such as: the three ducks are facing different directions; there is a hen in one picture and there are two hens in the other picture; there are two baby hens in one picture and five baby hens in the other picture. Children note the features that are unique to each picture and thus learn to refine their analytical skills. This simple oral activity that is possible for a five-year-old to unravel can be adapted to integrate all the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking for the middle school level.

Here is how it can be done for improving conversational skills. Students work in pairs, assigning one another a particular picture.

The conversation could run as follows:
A: Are there three ducks in your picture?
B: Yes, there are. They seem to be looking at the two ducklings in the pond.
A: Oh really? In mine, they are facing the opposite directions!
B: They must have had a fight!
A: I guess so.
B: What time do you think it would be in your picture?
A: How can I tell? There is no clock.
B: Look at the position of the sun!
A: Oh yes!

Such a dialogue allows for the natural, friendly flow of conversation. It also thwarts students from confining themselves only to the differences and allowing them the freedom of some productive conversation in the form of question and answers and observations. Teachers could also have students practise a particular structure in the formation of the sentences. For example, students could be told to practise question tags.

A: There are three ducks in your picture, aren’t there?
B: Yes, there are.
A: They are facing the same direction, aren’t they?
B: No, they aren’t. In mine, they are facing opposite directions.
A: The sun is still rising, isn’t it?
B: No, the sun is already in the sky.

Based on the same activity sheet, students can be introduced to transition words of comparison and similarity. This is a set of vocabulary that is essential for students to write better and clearer essays.

A sample of such writing would be as follows:
Here is a picture that looks similar at the first glance; however, the differences become apparent on further observation. I shall label the picture to my left Picture 1 and the picture to my right Picture 2. In picture 1, the little girl sitting on the fence is dressed in shorts and is wearing boots, whereas in picture 2, the little barefoot girl is wearing a dress and carrying a pail. Although there are three ducks in both pictures, in picture 1 the ducks are facing the same direction, whereas in picture 2, they are looking in opposite directions. Similarly, in picture 1, there is one hen surrounded by two chicks, while in picture 2, there are two hens and five chicks. The students then continue in a similar vein.

How does one transform this into a listening exercise? Simple enough. In fact, it can be combined into both a listening and a speaking exercise. One student describes one of the pictures, and the other students zoom in on the picture being described.

Example: 1. I am referring to the picture of the pig with the two piglets. (Pictures 1 and 2) 2. I am talking about the picture with the big house. (Picture 2). 3. I am talking about the picture with the girl carrying a pail. (Picture 2)

It’s easy to adapt and adopt isn’t it? If any of you teachers can think of other ways of adapting this worksheet for any of your teaching purposes, do write to us at editorial@gamart.in and let us know your ideas. We will publish them so that teachers have an unlimited and imaginative range of resources available to teach students of the middle school level.

The author is a teacher educator and language trainer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at manaswinisridhar@gmail.com.