F. Music

Find a song in another language on a cassette or CD or record.

Ask the group to listen to it: what kind of song is it? what kind of mood does it evoke? who is the song for?

Play the song again and this time ask the group to try to write down as many of the lyrics as they

can (don't worry about spelling!). Ask volunteers to read out their words - do they really appear in the song? how strange it sounds! can they understand anything?

Play the song again and repeat as often as the group wants.

You may find it useful to have a copy of the lyrics and a translation if you do not understand the language yourself.

G. The tandem

Two native (or very good) speakers of a language play a short scene from everyday life. This could be going to a shop to buy some fruit, or to a cafe to drink something. You may wish to experiment with scenes which include a small element of conflict, e.g., "I asked for a coffee without milk!", or "I'm sorry sir, but I was next in line to take the lift", etc.

The group is told to observe very closely the movements and speech of the actors. Two volunteers become the shadow of the actors and repeat their movements during the scene (but not the words).

Then the scene is played again and the shadows repeat the movements and the speech of the

actors. This may sound strange but the result is a kind of echo.

This exercise is great fun and enables members of the group to appreciate more how language

and gesture are linked. For groups where the members are not used to speaking in front of people it may help to do some exercises using "gibberish". This means acting out everyday scenes, but instead of using real words everyone just says "gibber gibber gibber" - with different emphases - all the time.

H. The printed word

Get some newspapers in another language. Find pages which have pictures, graphs, names of well-known personalities, etc etc. Make copies for everyone (or copy onto overhead sheets if you have an overhead projector).

Ask the group the following questions:

* describe what you see

* what do you recognise?

* are there any pictures or graphs?

* are there any words which are similar to your language?

* are there any figures or numbers? what could they refer to?

* what kinds of meanings can we find in all of this?

This exercise has proved successful in motivating people to try to read newspapers or journals in another language - they find they can understand far more than they thought possible.

[See also: Tool Box 2: Texts as a Cultural Resource in Language Learning by John O'Regan and Rose Clark.]

I. The language relay

Divide participants into groups of 4/5. For each group you make a copy of a couple of paragraphs drawn from a story, report or poem in your chosen language. Stick the copy on a wall far enough away from the group that they cannot read it from where they are sitting.

Each participant takes it in turns to run to the copy, study it for 20 seconds, run back and write down as much as they can remember. Gradually, by helping each other, their goal is to reproduce their text exactly.

You can set a time limit or stop when the first group has finished or let it continue until all have finished. Each group can then report their results, how difficult they found the exercise, how they managed to help each other and, of course, what they have understood from the text. This is a good activity for groups with mixed abilities.

[This exercise comes from an idea outlined by Véronique Balthasart and Carla van der Straeten].