Discovering Hidden Mysteries at Gossip Village

 

The Gossip Village, is an activity that I developed based on the materials that I picked from various sources to develop reading and speaking skills of my form 5 students. I decided to do this activity as the first reading lesson for unit two before exploring the reading task entitled 'Winchester Mystery House'. 

Preparation 

To carry out this lesson the teacher needs to prepare the following : 

a) Eight texts on different mysterious houses. Teachers may use the text I used for my lesson, but it may need to be simplified if your students are very weak. You know the level of your students better, so improvise it accordingly. You may click here to download the materials. 

b)  Next, you also need some 'monopoly money' for students to use for transaction purposes during the      activity. If you have Monopoly or SAHIBBA at home, you may use those money for the activity. As for me I have money templates which are designed for my classroom activities. The money templates were shared with me by a trainee teacher who came to my school many years ago. I can't recall  her name, so I am giving credits to her. If you want to use the money template that I am using, you may download it here. 

c) I prepared task sheets to be given at the end of the activity, to be done as a homework. It is more like  a reflection than a practice task. Click here for the task sheet. 

Preparation before you start the activity

• To carry out this activity the teacher first needs to divide the class into 8 groups. I have 24 students in my class so, I put them into eight groups. 
• Each group will be given equal amount of money ( Depends on the 'amount' of money you have). I gave them 500 dollars per group. 
• Each group will have labels on their respective tables which is the name of their houses.

Task

The classroom is going to be turned into a 'Gossip Village' - a place where everyone is gossiping about the past of everyone's house without the knowing the past of their own houses. 

Part 1 

The first 10 -15 minutes of the lesson 

Pupils dress up and get ready to become gossip queens. They can wear scarfs, sun glasses and other appropriate accessories. (I did not want to allow them to change clothes as it will be time consuming).

Pupils get into each group and they are assigned a house and a 'gossip' document which contains information of the people who lived in one of the houses in the 'Gossip Village'. 

The village has eight houses, and each house has a name such as, Grey House, Rose Cottage, Annie's Cottage, HoneySuckle Cottage, Manor Farm, Willow Cottage, Hazel Cottage and Home Farm. 

Pupils should be informed that they have just moved in into Gossip Village and each group owns as house here and in each of the house they discover a document related to one of the houses at their neighbourhood. For example, Grey House might have a document related to Annie's Cottage. 

The document could be a love letter, a bill, a report card or a post card that  may reveal some information about the past owners. Their task is to find out what happened in their respective houses many years ago. 

Pupils are to read the documents carefully and identify all the important details. They are to discuss these details in their groups for the first 15 minutes. Pupils should not write notes. 

Pupils are all dressed up and discussing the secret document
that they have discovered  

Part 2 

20 minutes 

In the second part of the lesson, pupils are to go around and share the information with their neighbours and at the same time they need to find the secrets of their own houses. They need to get at least 5 information about their own houses.

While they carry out this activity they have to follow the restrictions given below : 

a)  Every conversation should start by introducing one another, exchanging pleasantries or praising each others' scarfs. 

b) Pupils should only speak in English. A fine of 100 dollars will be imposed if any other languages are spoken. 

b) Pupils should not directly share the information to the owners of the houses, If they do, a fine of 100 dollars will be imposed.  For example, if Grey House has a document about Annie's cottage, they should not talk directly about it to the owner's of Annie's Cottage, but they can tell to anyone else. So, the owners of Annie's Cottage will get the information concerning their house from people who have heard from the members of the Grey House. 

c) The information shared should be negotiated for a certain amount of money. The higher the price the more detailed the information should be. For example, let's say the owners of Home Farm, has heard something useful about Annie's Cottage from Grey House. The owners of Home Farm can offer the information and negotiate the sum that they would like the owners of Annie's Cottage to pay them. This is how each house should negotiate to earn money and exchange information. 

d) The information exchanged should be from the text. Pupils cannot make up stories. 

e) The conversations should take place in pairs. However, if the class has odd numbers, three students in a group can be allowed. (all the three must be from different houses)

f) Pupils are not allowed to carry notes or any documents during the speaking part. All information shared should be based on what they remember from the reading. 

exchanging information

trying to get information

gossiping girls!

Part 3 

15 minutes 

After the 20 minutes of information exchanging session, pupils are to return to their own houses. They are to share and discuss the information that they have gathered about their own houses and  they need to explain what actually happened in their own houses in the past to the class. Each group takes turn to explain and the group that actually keeps the documents validate the information shared by the house owners. Pupils also share their opinions on the events happened at their houses. ( How they feel about it?)

Pupils are also to count the money that they have and the group that has the highest amount will be declared as the winner and they will be given the title 'Gossip Queens'.

Pupils counting their money

Part 4 (Closure) 

10 minutes 

Teacher sums up the lesson, distributes the task sheet to be completed as homework. Pupils are to write reflection on what is learnt during the lesson and what can be improved (I always forget to take pictures of my students' reflections, will remember the next round). 

Teacher's Reflection 

The lesson was conducted as planned. My role as a teacher was to make sure they understood the text, and discussed appropriately using the sequence connectors, linking words as well as appropriate vocabulary. This activity has helped students to develop better reading and speaking skills. While reading, they learnt to pick the important details to narrate to their friends and when narrating the ideas, they used the past simple and past continuous as instructed by the teacher ( me). 

Dear teachers, you may develop and improvise this activity according to your own mould!

Happy Teaching!