Like it or not, emoji are part of our modern lives 😉. Kids and grandparents 👴👵 alike love 💖 them. So let’s use emoji to encourage our student to write 👍✍. With these materials, we explore how to write a story for the Preliminary (PET) Writing Part 2, using emoji as a tool to promote varied, interesting story writing.
Contents
PET Writing Part 2 – The Story Option
As of January 2020, B1 Cambridge exam candidates will have to choose between a story or an article for Preliminary (PET) Writing Part 2. The format of the story prompt hasn’t changed. Candidates have to write a story based on a given title or extending from a given first sentence.
Story writing requires some imagination. I think that’s what scares off exam candidates. However, writing a story can also be a much better way to show off your language ability through the use of narrative tenses, time linkers and interesting vocabulary.
Cambridge says that candidates should be encouraged to write short stories for homework on a regular basis, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. I think the goal is to show my students that the story is a good option and it doesn’t need to be more difficult or take more time than an article. In fact, in many ways it’s a more interesting and more rewarding option.
If you want to practise letter writing for Preliminary (PET) Writing Part 1, check out our materials for improving a letter.
The Materials: Emoji Story
Writing a story for the PET exam can be difficult because candidates are given very little to work with. That means they need to stretch their imaginations.
Using emoji will motivate students to produce something interesting and varied while keeping them on task and having fun at the same time.
First, students try to predict the events of a story with emoji prompts before reading the sample story. Then, they have 4 different emoji story options to choose from to write their very own emoji masterpiece.
As a warmer or closer, try out one of these emoji quizzes on sporcle.com.
If you want to extend the task into some fun communicative practice, see if your students can collaborate to build story ideas on the spot using byrdseed.com’s emoji generator.
This activity is especially well suited to PET for Schools students, but it would work equally well with adult PET exam candidates. It might be interesting to compare the final results too!
EXAM PART: Preliminary (PET) Writing Part 2 – Story
EXAM SKILLS: Producing a longer piece of continuous writing which shows ambition and a variety of interesting content
TIME: 45-60 minutes
PREPARATION: One copy of the worksheet per student or pair of students
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