Consequences

This is a fun way to practise the past tense which needs no preparation.  All you need is a stack of scrap paper (so perfect for those days when you’ve had a room change into a Science lab).  Tell the students what to write each time.  After each round, their sentence is folded over and passed to the next person who adds a sentence, folds that over and passes to the next person etc.  The end result will hopefully be a nonsense story.  These are my suggestions for the sentences:

• where you went
• who you went with
• method of transport
• where you stayed
• what the weather was like
• what you did
• opinion of the holiday

I found that students were happy to take risks in their writing because they were working on scrap paper and it was for a game.  They used dictionaries to find new words and were more creative than when working in their books.

The finished consequences can simply be read out to the class.  Alternatively, they can form the basis of a session on improving writing, e.g. why is it “mit dem Bus” but “mit der Katze”/could you add connectives/could you vary the pronouns etc.