The 25th of November my teacher was ill and I had the chance to stay with the class and experience with them a communicative activity. As they were studying the past tenses I prepared a game based on famous people who died killed or in accidents (Ghandi, John Lennon, princess Diane, JFK...). I split the class into two different teams and each of them had to elect a spokesperson. The two representatives had to sit down, one next to the other and in front of the blackboard, and away from their group. Then I gave each team biographical details about a famous (who was he, how did he die, why did they kill him, why is he so important...) and every member of the group had to keep in mind something about this famous and explain it as soon as he can to the spokesperson. Each one had to run to his spokesperson and whisper him the information until he got who was the famous. Every time one team gave the right answer I wrote down 1 point on the blackboard. They had 6 famous. The team who got more points was the one that won. What it most astonished me was that the activity attired the attention of two boys that never wanted to participate in class and that they used to attend the English class completely apathetic. I was glad because I realised they enjoyed the activity and it was also useful to improve my relationship with the pupils.
The next day my teacher was still ill and I stayed one more day with them. She asked me to tell them to do a composition based on some instructions given in the book. As we had some minutes left I decided to know more about them. Like that I could design better my lesson plan and try to do something they really enjoyed. They explained what they would like to study when they finish their studies in the high-school. After that I introduced them the film 'Bowling for Columbine'. This film explores the causes for the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 where two students killed 12 classmates and one teacher. They also wounded 23 others before committing suicide. I asked them if they could imagine for what reason the two boys, who were 16 years old like my students, committed this massacre and we talked about the use of weapons in the USA. Some of the students had seen the film so the activity was even more interesting. The fact that some of them knew it made the rest of the class to keep more interest into it. They gave me their reasons and after all I asked them to tell me what did the two killers do when they finished their assault. All of them told that they run away. When I explained them that they killed themselves they were astonished and when I show them the pictures from the murders (two white skin and blond guys) they were even more surprised.
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