Extend the Story: Communicative Follow Up

(TESOL Ideas--Communicative Follow Up)

Sample: docs, pub

One communicative follow up for reading or listening lessons is to expand on an element of the story.  This, obviously, is most appropriate for reading or listening texts that have some sort of a narrative element to them.

Here is an example from the Impact 4 textbook.  In this reading, the students have to read about Nizar Ibrahim and the search for Spinosaurus.  A key point in the story is when Nizar Ibrahim accidently runs into a man with a mustache that he has been looking for.  I asked the students to expand this scene into a movie script.

Imagine you are making a movie about Nizar Ibrahim and the search for Spinosaurus.  Below is the opening of one of the key scenes, in which Nizar Ibrahim finally finds the man from Erfoud.

Scene: Nizar is sitting at an outdoor cafe, drinking tea with his colleague.

Colleague: So, Nizar, how has your search for Spinosaurus been going?

Nizar: Oh, it’s all useless. I travelled all this way to Morocco, but I still can’t find the man I’m looking for.

Colleague: That’s too bad.  [Takes a drink of his tea, and then looks up.] Oh, look at that funny little man walking down the street.  Did you ever see such a distinctive mustache?

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