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218 Contextualizing linguistic input
9.2.1 First, ask your learners whether (and how often) they think about the life they have traveled so far and about the future course of action.
9.2.2 Distribute two copies of a time chart like the one shown in Fig- ure 9.1. Change the years to suit the age group of your learners. Include at least ten years before and after the current year.
Figure 9.1
Explain to them how they are supposed to use this chart. Give them some time to think. Ask them to use one copy to take notes about their past, present, and future, focusing on major areas like school, sports, travel, job, family, etc., Ask them to highlight any interesting and sur- prising events in life.
9.2.3 Form pairs. Have each student find out information about his/ her partner and take notes to complete the second copy of the chart. Circulate as they converse, listening to monitor their use of tenses and time expressions. Take notes to help you focus on certain grammatical features later. If possible, tape (audio or video) the conversation in one group for later analysis.
9.2.4 Then, depending on time, ask every student to talk about their partner using the notes they took. Encourage them to talk rather than read. In addition to giving information about their partners, let them highlight any information that was surprising or noteworthy.
9.2.5 After the presentations, ask the students to say what surprised or interested them about their classmates. Allow the class to seek ad- ditional information or more details about any information already shared.
9.2.6 Now it is your turn to comment on what you heard about your students. It may not be a bad idea for you to share your own timeline with your students at this point.
9.2.7 Next, you might wish to focus explicitly on the students’ use of time and tenses, and on any communicative or linguistic difficulties you may have noted during their conversations.
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