Thesis Statement Partners

Level: Intermediate and above

Materials Needed: paper

Preparation: 

o   To teach students the rules of writing successful thesis statements, prepare a pair of good and bad thesis statements, each of which exemplifies a rule (see the sample thesis statements below). Put each thesis statement on a slip of paper. Make sure there is a slip for each student. You may need to increase the number of sample thesis statements according to the number of students you have.

o   Make copies of the rules and sample thesis statements for all students.     

Time: 20 minutes

Procedures:

-   Shuffle the slips of paper. Give the instructions:

“Here I have some sample thesis statements. Each thesis statement has a pair or two pairs, which are either the improved or the poor version.
 
Your task is to pick one thesis statement first. Then, you will find the pair or pairs of that thesis statement. When you find your partner, you will analyse them and decide which one is the good one and which one is the bad one. Then, you will come up with a rule explaining your sample thesis statements.”
 
-   Students pick a slip of paper and then mingle to find the student who has the pair of that thesis statement.  

-   When students find the pairs, they analyse their statements and decide which one is good and why.

-   Closely monitor the students at this stage and provide support if necessary.

-   When students come up with the rule, they write it on the board.

-   When all the rules are put on the board, go over them together with the class and make corrections if necessary.

-   Distribute each student the handout on which you have both the rules and the examples.

Variation:

-   If your students are not kinesthetic, you may prefer to ask students to do the same task on a worksheet.

Personal Comment:

-   Asking students figure out the rules of thesis statements rather than providing them with the rules is always much more helpful. What I have witnessed is that students tend not to forget the rules when they themselves figure them out.


This activity is from my book, The Activist. 

A Pronunciation Activity: Missing Boxes

This activity is designed to raise students' awareness of the silent letters in English. If you believe your students tend to mispronounce words with these letters, why don't you try out this activity in your classes?

Level: All
Materials Needed:  None
Preparation: Photocopy the student cards below or prepare a 4×4 grid for student A’s and B’s similar to the ones below.
Interaction Patterns: Pair work, whole-class activity
Time: 20 minutes

Procedures:
-    Students work in pairs.
-    Hand student A’s the student A card and B’s the student B card.
-    This is an information gap activity. Student A’s card is different from that of Student B. Thus, they need to ask each other questions to fill in the missing boxes on their cards.
-    Students in turn ask each other “What is number …?” and fill in their tables.
-    Remind students not to show each other their cards but to say those words so that they practice pronunciation.
-    Closely monitor the pairs to check they pronounce the words correctly. Provide help when necessary.
-    At the end of the pair-work activity, elicit each word and provide the correct pronunciation if needed.
-    Then, attract students’ attention to the boxes at the top of their tables.
-    Ask pairs to label the columns A, B, C and D according to common characteristics of the words in that column.
-    If students cannot find that common characteristic, highlight the silent letters in the words in that column.
-    Students give a title to each column (KEY: Column A will be titled SILENT B; column B will be named SILENT H; column C will be titled SILENT C and column D will be labelled SILENT W).
-    After giving a title to each column, check the pronunciation of a couple of words from the box to make sure students have understood the concept of silent letters in English.  

Personal Comment: 
- Turkish students tend to have difficulty in the pronunciation of words with silent letters and this activity is a fun way of raising awareness of this important issue.

For more pronunciation activities, you may read the chapter on Pronunciation Activities in my activity book, The Activist.