DIY* word order cratumar: Word order uve: Beginner to advanced mime: 15-25 minutes arenas: Any text Preparation Select a text. In class 1 Ask the students to skim the text and to choose their favourite word. ‘Ask some of them to say their words to the group and explain why they like them. 2 Ask each student to secretly choose their favourite sentence from the text. They then cut or fold and tear a piece of paper into enough oblongs to be able to write each word (including punctuation) on a separate piece. * DIY = do-it-yourself home improvements).3 Each student mixes up the pieces and places them on their chair. Students then mill around, choose a chair and reconstruct the sentence on it. Remind them to remix the pieces before moving on. Stop them when they've done half a dozen sentence reconstructions. Variation 1 Ask the students to add an extra, irrelevant word to their sentence. When other students reconstruct the sentence they omit the dummy word. Variation 2 ‘Ask the students to leave a word out of their sentences and to include a blank bie of paper to stand for the missing word. When other students reconstruct the sentence they need to include the missing word but not to write it on the blank slip of paper. NoTE This exercise works well with any text and will get people actively involved, even with poor texts. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ‘The exercise was shown to us by Jonathan Marks, co-author with Tim Bowen of The Pronunciation Book.