How can we make sentence builders more communicative?

Many teachers are having success with their classes using sentence builder frames (substitution tables). these allow for quick wins with students, enabling them to receive comprehensible listening and written input with a series of scaffolded tasks, from which they can create their own output. The principle behind their use can be summed up: from comprehensible input to output.

But not everyone goes for these, and some anecdotal teacher feedback is suggesting that the most able classes enjoy using them less than than other groups. It's hard to know whether this is owing to the way the tables are used, or whether the principle itself is just not quite challenging enough for the best linguists.

In addition, one slight concern I have had with them is that the games and activities done with them are often based on paired or whole class reading aloud, transcription and translation. These are all well and good, but I have been asking myself if we can use them in more communicative ways. One aim of this would be to appeal to more able learners. So how might this work?

Here is an example of an easy sentence builder, one I have just posted on frenchteacher.net:

Ce que mon ami(e) aime faire (What my friend likes to do)

Mon ami(e)…. aime (My friend…. likes….)	regarder la télé (to watch TV) aller en ville (to go into town) aller au cinéma (to go to the cinema) jouer des jeux vidéo (to play computer games) faire du sport (to do sport) chatter en ligne (to chat online) jouer des jeux de société  (to play board games) faire du vélo (to go out on his/her bike) faire les courses (to go shopping)	le weekend (at the weekend) le soir (in the evening) quand il fait beau (when the weather’s nice) quand il fait mauvais (when the weather’s bad)	J’adore ça aussi (I love that too) J’aime bien ça aussi (I like that too) Ça ne m’intéresse pas (That doesn’t interest me)
Par exemple (for example)	hier soir (last night) le weekend dernier (last weekend) samedi dernier (last Saturday)	il/elle a regardé un bon film (he/she watched a good film) il/elle a acheté des vêtements (he/she bought clothes) il/elle a joué au tennis (he/she played tennis) il/elle a joué au Monopoly (he/she played Monopoly) il/elle a joué au foot   (he/she played football) il/elle a regardé une série sur Netflix (he/she watched a series on Netflix)

Next, here is a typical teaching sequence, of the type we have suggested in Breaking the Sound Barrier.

1.         Read aloud some examples. Start with just the first row.

2.         Do some choral repetition for pupils to get used to saying the sentences.

3.         Get pupils in pairs to make up sentences (or do this as a whole class task with hands up or down)

4.         Then move to the next line and so on.

5.         In the end get pupils to make up full descriptions using all three lines.

6.         Then take away the displayed items and see what they can do from memory.

7.         If the above needs support use the “aural gap-fill technique”, i.e. give them parts of each sentence orally, then they complete.

8.         With some classes you could invite them to make up their own additions in each slot – some will ask about other destinations.

9.         Do some call and response translation into French.

10.       Play Mind Reader - where you think of a sentence which pupils must guess.

11.       You may like the idea of pupils recording their mini talks at the end or for homework if you give them a copy of the sentence frame.

Now, what other elements (or alternative ones) could we add?

Exploiting the oral-situational way of doing things (question-answer and other interactions), we could then ask:

Comment s'appelle ton ami(e)?

Il (elle) aime aller au cinéma?

Il préfère faire du sport ou aller en ville?

Il préfère faire du sport, aller en ville ou chatter en ligne?

Et toi, qu'est-ce que tu préfères faire - faire du sport ou aller en ville? Pourquoi?

Ton ami(e) aime faire du vélo? 

Et ta mère?

Et toi, est-ce que tu aimes faire du vélo?

Alors, en général qu'est-ce que tu aimes et qu'est-ce que tu n'aimes pas faire?

etc

Using traditional QA technique (TPRS "circling") allows for some personal questioning and more repetitions of the target chunks. Crucially, it involves input and response in the target language, mirroring real life conversation turn-taking, albeit in a very contrived way.

Then you can take it further. You could ask your questions, this time getting students to write down their answers, still using the sentence builder (or a gapped version of it) to help.

Then how about a communicative guessing game, along the lines of Mind Reader (mentioned above).

Each student writes down five things they like to do, hiding them from their partner. each partner uses yes/no questions to guess what their partner likes to do. Activities could include new ones, not on the sentence builder.

Est-ce que to aimes jouer au basket?

Est-ce que to aimes jouer des jeux en ligne? etc

You've got the idea now, and no doubt you could take it further to add other communicative tasks, such as a more sophisticated information gap activity.

A good way to expand on the original sentence builder and these other activities would be to concoct a comprehensible text based on the pastimes of a celebrity, or perhaps a series of short texts where students must read and guess the name of the famous person, or other person in the class, or teacher.

All in all, I feel that this approach allows you to take the sentence builder a bit further down the communicative route in a way which would appeal to some, possibly more able, classes.

Feedback is welcome!