'Interrupt my Story' ; My Reflection

On July 17, 2015, I conducted a creative activity in my class among grade eight students. The name of the activity was ‘Interrupt my story’. Though the idea of the came from one of the training sessions I had attended a year before, I thought to use that technique in a creative way. In the training session, we were advised to tell a story by ourselves (teachers) and let students interrupt us and listen to their questions and answer the question so that students would develop their speaking skills and build up confidence in learning English. I tried to apply this technique as I was suggested in the session however,  at first attempt, my technique failed, as there were forty six students in my class, I had to leave the class because the class went out of control, students started making noise and I couldn’t decide on whom to give chance to ask questions . Similarly, I found some of the students asking unnecessary questions that embarrassed me in front of other teachers.

I was upset and hopeless because of the situation but I thought for a while and found out the alternative of using the same technique in a creative way. Being a teacher of large classroom, I divided the whole class into eight groups having six members in each group. Then I assigned them the task that one of the group members will share the simple story and rest five of the students will ask question to their friends by interrupting him/her in the middle. Similarly, one of them would present the reflection on working in groups. They got some time for preparation and presented their group work in front of the class.

The outcome was amazing that I hadn’t expected from them. All the groups performed in an excellent way. They shared one simple story and managed timing for asking questions and I found those who hadn’t spoken a single word in the class was telling the whole story and answering the queries of their friends. I applied this technique in seven different sections of grade eight and found it effective to develop speaking as well as writing skills of the students. Students reflected that they liked the activity very much and wanted to be involved in such activities again.

This is how the technique ‘Interrupt my story’ became a creative activity for my large classroom to be creative and be engaged in productive activity for the development of speaking and writing skills in English.