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'Disappearing text'

This is a simple activity I enjoyed using with classes, notably from Y8 to Y10. The idea is to display a short text on the screen, work with it (e.g. read it aloud, translate it, do a 'find the French', do some question-answer), then in a series of subsequent slides, gradually remove words and phrases. For each of the following slides the class has to recall the missing words until they are able to recreate some or all of the text purely from memory. The task is almost all in the target language. Words and chunks are repeated many times over and hopefully some will be assimilated for later use.

It's not a communicative task at all, but I found that my classes did enjoy the short-term memory challenge and they were seeing, hearing and using chunked language many times over. With a highly proficient class, they will be able to recreate virtually the whole text without any support after about 20 minutes.

Below is an example I wrote for my site. It's a simple text in the perfect tense about a shopping trip in town. It might work with a class from Y8 to Y10, depending on their proficiency. An activity of this type can fit in with other more communicative tasks, and the text you display can be used in other ways - for example written adaptation. Indeed, the optional final slide in the example has words and chunks marked in bold for the class to change. High-frequency verb chunks are used, for instance: je suis allée, j'ai choisi, j'ai pris, j'ai regardé, je suis entrée.

The task is also a good fit with EPI-style lesson sequences. Gianfranco and I have described it in our books.

One of the slides contains the teacher's instructions.

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