IV.3 From word to story GRAMMAR: | want you to, past simple LEVEL: Post-beginner TIME: 20-30 minutes MATERIALS: A full set of word cards per ten students ‘One pin per student Preparation Using a thick marker pen prepare word cards for the following story. These cards will be pinned to the students’ clothing. If you have 30 in your class, you will need three sets of word cards. Store your word cards for each of the six sentences in the story in separate envelopes. Here is the story: 1(AWOMAN] [VERY] (MUCH) DWANTED] HAVE BUT SHE, 2 (SHE) WENT) [TO SFE] (ALL) [THE DOCTORS: (COULD. FIND —][NO][GOOD.] (WENT) (TO) [KHYPNOTIST) (WHO) SAID) ELWANT: (YOU) (TO) (RELAX.”] 4CIDONT) (WANT) 0 WANT] (YOU (TO) (GO) (TO) [SEEEP.) 5 ELWANT) (YOU) (TO) [BECOME] [A] [HEN] (AND) (LAY) [AN (EGG) 6 [SHE] (LAID. [EGGT] [LATER] [ON] [SHE BABY. In class 1 Divide your class into standing circles of ten. Give each student in the circle a pin and a word card from the first sentence. Ask the students to pin the word cards to their fronts. 119Grammar through drama 2. Ask the students to re-arrange themselves in their circles until they have put together a sentence that makes sense. 3. As soon as a circle has got a correct sentence, ask them to lay it out in order on a table or desk top neat them. Give them the second sentence, and so on. Note You may well not have a class of 10 or 20 or 30. When you put the words on to cards you can alter the number of words you put on each card and so make the sentences fit your particular class size. Alternatively, you can, supposing you have 27 people in your class, organise them into three circles of nine, and have the tenth card in each circle on the floor where everybody can see it. This technique can be used with any structure-loaded story — it is an excellent way of introducing a structure for the first time Acknowledgement [ first learnt the idea of people as words in a sentence in an All's well (by Sagot et al, Didier, 1974) class in the Adult Migrant Education Service centre in Bankstown, Sydney, Australia.