Write or die

This is a new program aimed at writers, but adapts to the classroom well; I tried it with S2s quite successfully, and they seemed to enjoy it to.

The students work in pairs, one writes and the other is the referee. The writer must write in English, that makes sense for a fixed period of time, say a minute. Every time the writer pauses for more than two seconds, the ref gets to mark down a penalty. I used the body from hangman, a head, body, two arms and two legs. If they are all written up, the writter is dead.

After the minute, they all have to read what they wrote out to the class, which provoked great hilarity, and two new rules.

Any words that are not in English are instant death, as are any swear words.

Worked well for me.