So I have done the "Tower Block" activity from one of Jill Hadfield's communicative activities books. Basically each student gets a card with information which could include the student's major and neighbors' majors. Students then had to determine where in the apartment they lived by finding their neighbors.
The problem was that there was lots of extra information and vocabulary built into the cards that was totally useless - students didn't need it to complete the task. Foe example one might say - You don't like your neighbor who majors in economics because his/her budgie is always cheeping. So we've got this tough vocab, that never gets used. All the student has to do is find the economics major. All this information about who you like and dislike is useless in terms of completing the task.
There also seems to be some sort of effort to turn this into a role-play. Stuff like "You don't get on well with your roomate" or on another card "You'd like to move." Who cares? Students can't do anything with this information.
I think what I'm going to do next time is have students prepare their own information sheets with majors, pets, and hobbies. Then sort them out into some Apartment rooms and prepare role-cards - You live next to an economics student who likes playing the piano and has a dog. The task, figuring out where in the apartment you live, is a good one, but why use impersonal information instead of the students' own information? And why include information that's completely useless for students to complete the task?
Posted by James Trotta at September 4, 2004 2:34 PMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.