Coursebooks often have guided practice exercises where you find single sentences numbered, under each other, students are to use the appropriate word or the words in brackets in the right form.
I often find that students simply neglect the meaning they do the task automatically. They are simply too lazy to think and say one or another answer, not really wanting to get it right. It is funny but also a waste of time. When I see that my students are missing the point with tasks like these I try to make them imagine the situation depicted in the task.
An example:
Sentence from the exercise:
Billy has eaten/ate all the watermelon form the fridge.
Digital teens tend to quickly choose one of the options without too much thinking. Let’s colour it a bit:
How old is Billy?
What does he look like?
What was the last thing he ate?
On Facebook you can start a conversation about 'crucial' thing like Billy's hair, it may make the exercise a bit more memorable. If these comment threads are fun enough students might take up looking for the the meaning in these seemingly monotonous tasks.
I often find that students simply neglect the meaning they do the task automatically. They are simply too lazy to think and say one or another answer, not really wanting to get it right. It is funny but also a waste of time. When I see that my students are missing the point with tasks like these I try to make them imagine the situation depicted in the task.
An example:
Sentence from the exercise:
Billy has eaten/ate all the watermelon form the fridge.
Digital teens tend to quickly choose one of the options without too much thinking. Let’s colour it a bit:
How old is Billy?
What does he look like?
What was the last thing he ate?
On Facebook you can start a conversation about 'crucial' thing like Billy's hair, it may make the exercise a bit more memorable. If these comment threads are fun enough students might take up looking for the the meaning in these seemingly monotonous tasks.
