Interesting Lesson: Sentence Relay

This is a lesson called "Sentence Relay", somewhat like a "running dictation" activity. Here's how it works:


Each team's members take turns being "the runner" (one at a time) while the others are "the writers". Supposing there are four members, they have three recording sheets. A runner goes to a station and deciphers the sentence in the image. The one below, for example, is "He is eating a pizza".


The runner returns to the team, dictates the sentence, and they write it in the appropriate space.


The runner takes the recording paper from the next team member and becomes a writer, while s/he goes to the next station to figure out the next sentence.


In this case, the target language was about sentences with present continuous verb phrases, like "I am feeding the dog." However, you can create sentences with practically any target language or topic. Here is an example from a sixth grade lesson about the seasons:


I have done four or five iterations of the Sentence Relay activity, and you may be wondering where one goes to get the "word pictures" on which it is based. I use a website called Tagul - it has the ability to be a url-linked "label cloud" on your website, if you like.

As I prepare to leave my current school, I think I may put more of the activities that the kids here have responded to really well.