Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 9

illustration of various contextual actions. The students had to write their own “letter from
home” as homework.
After having realized the huge impact short fiction could have on developing
students’ fluency and how thoroughly engaged they were in the conversation trying to
relate the advice rendered in the story to their personal experience, I considered that such
materials could have a tremendous impact on developing their language activities and
encouraging them to practise intensive reading.
Creative writing may stem from highly accurate historical events. When assessing
knowledge of American culture for students in the 12 th form, I try to integrate activities that
are both meaningful and interesting into my annual planning. Apart from receiving
handouts full of factual information, they also watch documentaries illustrating certain
historical circumstances, geographical knowledge, biographies of important people. In
order to assess what they have learned I ask my students to relate the taught content to
their personal/ imagined life stories. Here are two examples of assessment:
1. Imagine you were either a Pilgrim, or a black slave, or an immigrant in the nineteenth
century. You are now very old. Write a composition (180-200 words) about how you came
to the USA and your life there (Baxter 29),
2. Write a review of a favourite holiday destination (a city, a national park) in the U.S.A.
Watching films may be also an effective way of consolidation, revise factual
historical knowledge, or they might act as contexts for setting up writing and speaking
activities. A good example would be Forrest Gump written by Winston Groom, which has
been also been made into a film starring Tom Hanks and it is also included into the
Penguin Readers edition. After watching the film, the students have to pinpoint certain
essential moments in American History. The teacher organises a debate on stereotypes.
Their homework consists of writing a review of the film or a short composition based on a
quote uttered by the main character “My mom always said life was like a box of
chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get”, in which they have to provide
arguments based on events presented in the film. Many students were eager to read the
book the film was based on, although some of them chose the abridged version (those
with a lower level of English).
According to Adriana Vizental’s practical recommendations, before reading a text,
the teacher should “activate the students’ personal experience and knowledge of the
world, to stir their imagination for the reading to come, to involve them emotionally and
motivate them” (229). One way of introducing vocabulary items and the topic of food, in
particular would be to use Williams Carlos Williams’ poem “This is just to say”:
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
This poem may be used as a warm-up activity or an ice breaker, the teacher
prompts discussion by eliciting the reason for the poet to have written such a poem.
Students try to write a simple poem apologising to somebody for doing something wrong.
They have to use the poem as a model: they start with this line This is just to say I have
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