Your educator will divide you into groups. Please co-operate!

Listen carefully while your educator reads the following to you:

TIPS FOR GOOD GROUP DYNAMICS

Choose a leader for the group:

The leader should . . .

Make sure every member reads and contributes.

All opinions should be heard.

Each member should listen, take notes, take part, contribute, assess, learn to summarise.

Each member should respect the views of the other members.

The group should share responsibilities.

The group should not stray from the topic and goals of the activities.

The group should develop good social skills by being accommodating, tolerant and patient.

Each group should find FIVE pictures from magazines or newspapers, depicting various song titles.

They may only ask questions to which you can reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

You may act out a word or a syllable or a phrase, as in charades.

Let the leader of the group read the following rules to you:

The team may not speak at all but only use actions to depict the title.

Select a song title that is easy to act out, e.g. Walking my Baby Back Home.

First show the class that the title consists of five words by holding up five fingers. Then you hold up one finger to indicate that you are dealing with the first word.You let them know how many syllables there are in this word.Then you act out the first word.

Now you go on to the next word . . . and so on.

Perhaps let somebody else read here and explain fully:

You can do the same for the title of a film by pretending that you are rolling a film,or for the title of a book (hold your palms upwards to indicate a book);or the title of a TV programme by drawing a square in the air (indicating a TV).

You can do the same for parts of speech. Take common nouns and see how many a team can guess in a given time limit. TIP: Abstract nouns are very difficult to do – for the experts.

Let a third person read here and explain fully:

There is one extra way of doing this. Place one learner at the front of the room. S(he) has a list of titles. One member from each team goes up to her/him and is given a title. This member then returns to the group and either acts out or draws the title for the group. There may be no speaking by the member whose turn it is.

If the group successfully guesses the title, then the next member goes up to fetch the next title.

Obviously the answer must not be shouted out because the other team will hear!

The team that correctly identifies all the titles first is the winner.

Enjoy the activity, but make sure that you learn about communication at the same time!

The educator will select the readers for this activity.

The passage will be read TWICE:

TIP: It is sometimes useful in a comprehension activity to read just the first sentence of all the paragraphs and to look at the source of the writing as these give important clues.

If you want to skim-read, then pick out the main nouns and verbs ONLY as you read.

Somehow your brain makes the connections.

It is amazing how much you can learn in such a short time.

Competition

Excitement was in the air! It was that time of year again…school concert time!

The hall was alive with the voices of energised children discussing what they would be doing in the concert. Groups were forming, and those already established were frantically practising.

This year’s concert was different from others before…this year a local business was sponsoring the best group and the prize was: A musical trip to Botswana, Namibia and Scotland!

The Pally Band [PB] was a group made up of six friends: Chrystal, on percussions; Dawid, on keyboard (he could also make music with bottles); Vusi, who played the saxophone and violin; Nizaam, the lead singer (and harmonica player); Charlie (a girl), the guitarist, and lastly, Jaco, who played the marimbas and did gumboot-dancing as well.

This versatile group could play anything from bluesy jazz music to rock; from traditional African music to classic Bach and Vivaldi. The six of them practised diligently every afternoon, and every weekend. Charlie’s dad, Uncle Henry, let them use his garage - he was very supportive of his daughter’s band and of her friends.

To repay him, they wanted to win the competition.

With the exception of Dawid, all the band members had their own instruments, which they permanently set up in the garage. The headmistress kindly loaned her son’s keyboard to Dawid for the duration of the practice sessions.

Time was closing in on them. There was exactly one and a half weeks left to the big night. The school was abuzz with all the enthusiasm and arrangements. The acts were of a very high standard, but The Pally Band were confident that they would be the ones going on the trip!

That night at rehearsal Nizaam came up with the idea that they should all wear the same outfits for the performance. He had discussed it with his mom, Gina, a seamstress. She had agreed to make their costumes for only R45.00 each. The other band members were excited, and the noise level rose with their animated chatter.

Nobody noticed that Dawid sat alone. Quiet. Downcast.

The next evening, Dawid did not turn up for their usual practice. He had no explanation for them the next day. The band were puzzled by his reaction. Was it just a musician’s temperament? To make sure, they went to his house to speak to him directly.

His mom opened the door and explained that Dawid was pulling out of the band! The members were devastated. And confused. They insisted on speaking to him.

“Please tell him that we are his friends and we need to speak to him.”

Soon Dawid came downstairs and faced his friends. He could feel their concern.

“I am so ashamed … I do not have the money to pay for the costume,” Dawid mumbled.

“Is that all?” Chrystal exclaimed, relieved. “That is NO PROBLEM! We are a team. We can do anything together!”

Together they decided to organise a car wash that Saturday to generate funds for their outfits. Very soon they had made enough money to pay for ALL their costumes.

Then it was Friday night! The Pally Band waited anxiously in the wings for their turn. But as soon as they were on stage performing for the crowd, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that The Pally Band would be going on tour to Botswana, Namibia and Scotland during the next school holidays – wearing their new outfits!

Give four reasons for the busy atmosphere in the school hall.

What is meant by:

One is ‘different from’ and ‘similar ……..’

Write two sentences using the following correctly:

Can you think of a way of remembering these? (A memory tool is called a ‘mnemonic’)

When you change paragraph 12 into indirect speech, give the FOUR words that change:

Fill in the missing gaps in the following chart:

Can you explain how the title of the passage fits into this story – in two ways?

Match the players with their instruments by drawing a line between them:

What proof do you have that the group was versatile? Quote from the passage correctly.

Why does one write ‘The group is . . .’ and not ‘The group are . . .’?

Past tense verbs are normally formed by adding a suffix.What is the past tense verb of the following?

ACTIVITY 1

As this module deals with group work, it is essential to get this right from the start. So go through the process of group work, almost in slow motion, so that they understand the dynamics FULLY. THEN put what you have taught them into practice with the next exercises and consolidate what you have told them about group work.

ACTIVITY 2

Here the essence is confidence in communication and class discipline – also group work. While someone is busy in the front of the class, the rest of the class should pay attention and respect his right to speak. So, disturbances go against the grain of group work. THIS should be understood.

ACTIVITY 3

Charades is always fun, as it allows learners to speak English freely and you can make sure that the learners understand where the break comes in syllables and so gain extra information. This helps with hyphenating words correctly.

ACTIVITY 4

Learners need to know how to read correctly and how to skim-read.

ACTIVITY 5

Let them do this as a language test. They should be familiar with the passage!

They should be encouraged to SEE HOW to answer questions – these skills are useful in an examination e.g. to give a full answer etc.

They should realize the difference between words and phrases, as they occur.

They should look for other mnemonics and share them among the learners in the class.