Hacking Creativity

jmagoto@uoregon.
edu 03 Jan 2020
HACKING CREATIVITY
TEACHING TECHNIQUES, EXERCISES & ACTIVITIES FOR THE CREATIVE
LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
BY NIK PEACHEY
© PEACHEYPUBLICATIONS LTD 2019
jmagoto@uoregon.edu 03 Jan 2020
HACKING CREATIVITY
Teaching Techniques, Exercises and

Activities for the Creative Language
Classroom
By Nik Peachey
© PeacheyPublications 2019
i
DEDICATION
For my daughters Molly and Isabella -
Thank you for sharing the gift of your creativity, for making me play
and for helping me to smell, taste, touch, see and listen to the
world anew every day.
ii
COPYRIGHT
Your Rights
Buying this book gives you the right to use it and any of the ideas
and materials from it with your students. It does NOT give you the
right to copy, share copies with other teachers or store and
redistribute it online.
Copyright Information
This book is an independent publication and has been created in

my own time and at my own expense. I depend on the proceeds
from my books and materials so that I can produce more work like
this and so that I can feed my family and send my daughters to
college. When you download or share this book without my
permission you are stealing from me and my family.
If you have downloaded this book without permission or paying,

please do the right thing and go buy a copy from:
https://www.peacheypublications.com/ or
https://payhip.com/peacheypublications
If you can’t afford or don’t have the means to buy it, then read on in
peace and I hope that it helps you and your students.
All images remain the property of the creator.
Thanks
Nik Peachey - Co-Founder PeacheyPublications Ltd
PeacheyPublications is registered as limited company: 11586696
iii
INTRODUCTION
HACKING CREATIVITY
Creativity has become something of a buzzword in education

over the last few years, largely due to the work of Ken Robinson
and others like him. It has even reached number three in the
World Economic Forum’s list of top skills you need to succeed in
2020.
But what is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we all have it

or is it something that only a talented few have? Do schools kill
creativity? Do students hide it in their bags when they come into
class?
In this book I won’t be attempting to answer any of those

questions. Instead I’ll be sharing some ideas, exercises,
techniques and activities which I have enjoyed using with
teachers and students and a few which I have learned from my
two daughters.
I hope these ideas, exercises and activities will help you to make
creativity an element of every lesson you do rather than an
occasional ‘treat’ for students.
The contents of this book have been divided into three sections.
• The first part looks at a range of teaching techniques that you

can use in any lesson to help develop your students’ creativity.
It also includes some suggestions and easy exercises for
applying these in the classroom.
• The second part is a collection of 30 structured activities.

These include step by step instruction as well as example
materials that you can use in the classroom.
• The third part is a collection of digital tools and applications

you can use with your students to help them use their creative
skills to make and share digital artefacts with others around the
world.
iv
I hope you and your students will find this book an enjoyable and useful
accompaniment for your everyday teaching.
v
CONTENTS
Part 1 Techniques & Exercises ! ! ! ! ! ! 7
1. Brainstorming 10
2. Combining 12
3. Grouping and Connecting 14
4. Making 17
5. Music and Sound 18
6. Photography 20
7. Sketching and Doodling 21
8. Taste and Smell 23
9. Vision Boards 25
10. Visualisation 27
Part 2 Activities! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 30
1. Complete the Plot 31

2. Creative Quotes 33
3. Empathy Images 35
4. Gender Change Fairy Tales 37
5. Guided Visualisation 39
6. Image Scenarios 42
7. Image Interviews 44
8. Let’s Take a Risk 46
9. Mad Song Lips 48
10. Marketing Connections 50
11. Mashup Inventions 52
12. Mind Reading 55
13. Mysterious Problems 57
14. Personal Motivation 59
15. Poem Halves 61
16. Show and Tell Images 63
vi
17. Six Degrees of Separation 65

18. Storyboarding Success 67
19. Story from Questions 69
20. Story from Sounds 71
21. The Colour of Words 73
22. The Election 75
23. The Future of... 77
24. The Sales Pitch 79
25. The Soundtrack from the Film 81
26. The Story Behind the Image 83
27. The Story of Rubbish 85
28. The Villain 88
29. Things You can Do With a Newspaper 90
30. Unrelated Words 93
Part 3 Tools for Creating! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 95
1. Writing 96
2. Video & Images 99
3. Sketches & Doodling 101
4. Coding and Animation 102
5. Music 103
6. Inspiration 104
About the Author 105
vii
TECHNIQUES & EXERCISES

This part of the book contains a range of techniques and exercises you can
use with your students to help encourage and foster their creativity.
When using these exercises, encourage students to talk about them in groups
or pairs afterwards and be open to their feedback and suggestions.
More than anything, being able to encourage and foster creativity in your
classroom depends very much on your attitude and the atmosphere and
dynamic you are able to develop with your students.
Expressing personal creativity in the classroom is a risky undertaking for your

students. It often involves exposing some sensitive elements of their psyche
which traditional classroom learning doesn’t engage with. If you want your
8
students to be willing to take this risk then you need make the classroom a
safe environment for that and you need to:
• Be willing to take the risk with them. Where possible share your own
examples and get involved with doing the exercises too, not as models for
them to copy, but try to be an equal in the process of creation.
• Be encouraging and don’t dismiss any ideas or suggestions. Give

everything consideration however bizarre their suggestions or ideas may
seem.
• Try to keep things light in the classroom. Be accepting of students sense of

humour and try to share your own.
• Build a positive dynamic among students. Move them around a lot so that
they get to know and work with each other and encourage them to
appreciate each others’ work.
• Assess and help to improve the level of their language during these
activities, but don’t try assess or grade the level of their creativity. This is
something that’s unique to each person and of no more or less value in one
than another.
Remember: Constructive criticism can be good, but focussing on helping

students identify and build on their own strengths is much better.
9
BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming can be defined as the process of spontaneously
gathering ideas in order to achieve a specific goal or solve a specific
problem. It can be done alone, but is often done in groups. For those
who do it regularly, brainstorming may seem very simple or even
intuitive, but for many of our students it is not.
Effective brainstorming is dependent on the ability to suspend

judgement and equally to suspend the fear of being judged and this
can be difficult in the classroom environment which is often associated
with testing, assessment and evaluation.
Developing students’ abilities to brainstorm can take time and training.

As with most things, practice will really help, though initially you may
find some students resistant. The key thing is to persist and maintain an
atmosphere of openness, positivity and good humour.
When brainstorming as a class be sure to welcome any ideas and all

ideas, however ‘outside the box’ they may seem. Focus on quantity of
ideas to encourage students to push beyond the obvious.You can also
set a time limit or make the brainstorming competitive and to
encourage the students to produce more ideas more quickly.
Exercises
• Topic vocabulary - Ask students to brainstorm words based around

a topic that they will study. Set an ambitious word limit to help push
them to associate the topic with more of the words they know. 
 
Example: Think of 30 words associated with the topic of art.
• The colour of words - Ask students to brainstorm words connected

with a colour or emotion.  
 
Example: Think of 20 words you associate with yellow/red/green, etc. 
Example: Think of 20 words that are happy/angry/lonely, etc.
• Different ways - Ask students to brainstorm multiple ways of doing

things. 
 
Example: Think of ways you can collect water when it rains. 
10
Example: Think of ways you can cook an egg without using a cooker. 
Example: Think of ways you can cross a river without getting wet.
• Fixing the world - Ask students to brainstorm ways of solving one of

the world's problems. 
 
Example: How can we put an end to pollution caused by air travel?  
Example: How can we put an end to corruption in politics? 
Example: How can we end world hunger?
• Pros and cons - Ask students to brainstorm as many arguments as

possible for or against something. 
 
Example: Why should we eat more ice-cream? 
Example: Why should we stop using social media? 
Example: Why should we cut down more trees? 
 
Note: Sometimes it’s good to get thinking about things from the
opposite viewpoint to their own.
11
COMBINING
Many people believe that in order for something to be creative it has to

be totally original, however, many inventions and creations came about
by combining or ‘fusing’ two or more existing ideas. The first printing
press, for example, was a combination of a device for pressing grapes
and another for making coins.
This process of combining ideas is something that we can encourage

in the classroom with our students to foster their creativity. This activity
of combining ideas often works well after brainstorming. We can ask
students to look back at the ideas they have generated to see if they
can combine any two or more in ways that will improve them or
produce a totally new idea.
Again it’s important not to be dismissive or judgemental about the ideas

and combinations students suggest and be sure to reward imagination
with praise.
Exercises
• Portmanteau words - When you review vocabulary, get students to

try to create their own portmanteau words. Give them the examples of
‘brunch’ = a combination of breakfast and lunch, or ‘mansplaining’ =
when a man explains something to a woman that she already knows,
‘me-time‘ = some time for yourself, shopaholic = someone who is
addicted to shopping, etc. (You can find more examples here. Get
the students to see how many different combinations they can
produce from from their group of words. You can also give them some
of the parts of the words here to help, e.g. me, man, aholic, etc.
Note: You can generate random word lists for students to work with
using: https://randomwordgenerator.com/
• Two plots in one - Ask students to take the plots of two very different
books or films and combine elements of each into a new plot.  
 
Example: Combine the plot of ‘Titanic’ with ‘Frozen’. 
Example: Combine the plot of ‘Jane Eyre’ with ‘Dracula’. 
 
12
Note:This was very popular some time ago when classic books were
being combined with a zombie theme.
• Characters - Ask students to combine two different characters from

different films or books and create a new character. Or even a real
person with a character from a book.  
 
Example: Combine Donald Trump with Jack Sparrow. 
Example: Combine Madonna with Hillary Clinton. 
Example: Combine Justin Bieber with Shrek.
• Combining sentences - Ask students to combine two unrelated

sentences together.  
 
Example: She was too short to see over the fence. + It was getting
dark, and we weren’t there yet. = It was getting dark and we weren’t
to the fence that she couldn’t see over yet. 
 
Example: I think I will buy the red car, or I will lease the blue one. + I
am never at home on Sundays. = I think I will buy the red car on
Sunday, or I will lease the blue one so I won’t ever have to be at home
again.
Note: You can use: https://randomwordgenerator.com/sentence.php to

generate random sentences for this activity or use sentences using
grammar structures students have been learning.
13
GROUPING AND CONNECTING
It’s often said that creative people are able to make connections
between seemingly unrelated ideas. This process of looking at things
and exploring connections can encourage students to think more
deeply about them and look for genuine connections between things in
their lives.
Exercises
• Odd word out - Give students groups of four unrelated words and
ask them to decide which is the odd one out. They can justify this in
any way they like.  
 
Example: afford, flower, harsh, document = harsh is odd because it
doesn’t have an ‘o’. 
Example: charge, mention, walk, confer = charge is the odd one
because it involves taking money.
• Grouping words - Give students a groups of 20-30 words they have

studied and ask them to put them into X number of groups, then
explain their rationale. Give them a graph with buckets on and ask
them to name the buckets and then put the words into each bucket.  
 
• Linking to people - Ask students to imagine a link or association

between any object and another object, person, piece of music or
sound.  
 
Example: How does Jingle Bells link to Barak Obama? (Possible
answer: It’s his favourite Xmas song and he always sings it on Xmas
Day).
14
• News events - Ask students to imagine the connections between any

two news events in very different parts of the world. Reward the
students who can create the longest and most complex connection. 
 
Example: What’s the connection between ‘Madonna falls off stage’
and ‘From rubbish to rice: the cafe that gives food in exchange for
plastic’.  
 
Connection - When Madonna fell from the stage in 2015 she was
wearing a plastic cape which she thought was the cause of her fall.
She decided to throw it in the rubbish, but then someone who was
working for her thought it was a waste and decided to take it to a
recycling bin. On her way to the bin she noticed how much plastic
rubbish was just dropped on the floor and in the road and she
decided to start picking it up. She realised that this was great
exercise so she started taking a bag with her when she went jogging
and so became a ‘plogger’ (this is a combination of jogging and
picking up rubbish). Soon Madonna heard what she was doing and
decide that she wanted to do the same thing to help keep fit. She
went plogging while she was on tour and passing through India. A
few people started copying her and collecting the rubbish in bags,
but realised they didn’t know where to put it. A local restaurant owner
decided to reward these people by exchanging their plastic rubbish
for a free meal.
• Book relations - Ask students to imagine a connection between

characters in two different books or two different films.  
 
Example: How is Spiderman connected to Nicholas Nickleby? 
Example: How is Juliet Capulet connected to Luke Skywalker?
• Image connections - Give students any 2 or more images and ask

them to imagine the connection between them.  
Note: You can find a random image generator here:
http://writingexercises.co.uk/children/random-images.php
• Sentence connections - Give students two unrelated sentences and

ask them to imagine some form of contextual connection.
Example: What’s the connections between “I want more detailed

information.” + “Abstraction is often one floor above you.”? 
15
 
Possible answer: A man goes to a tourist information kiosk and asks for
directions to a local gallery that has modern art. The assistant gives
him polite instructions, but he replies angrily that he wants more
detailed instructions. She replies that “Abstraction is often one floor
above you.” The man leaves very happily.
16
MAKING
We all know that primary students love to paint and make things, but
somewhere through the process of our education this tactile dimension
of our education seems to get put to one side. Luckily, there is now a
strong movement back towards including ‘making’ as part of our
students’ education and this is a great thing to include in our lessons.
To enable students to get ‘hands on’ and tactile you may need to invest
in a few supplies or some cuisenaire rods, though this doesn’t have to
cost a fortune. You could ask students to bring in their throw away
packaging (cleaned first of course), or use some magazines that can
be cut up, some cheap children's modelling clay, or even some old
second hand toys or building blocks. You’ll need to have enough so
that you can distribute them evenly to groups or pairs of students.
Exercises
• Build a sentence - Ask the students to build representations of

sentences. This could be using blocks, food packaging or by cutting
out images from magazines.
• Build a scene - Describe a scene from a book or a story and ask the
students to recreate it using the items you give them as they listen.
You can then get them to change groups and explain how they
represented the various aspects of the scene.
• Build a story - Ask the students to invent and tell a story using the
objects. The objects can be representational or literal.
• Build a work of art - Ask them to recreate famous people or works of

art with their objects and then try to guess what each other’s
constructions represent.
• Collage yourself - Ask students to make a collage of their own

personality from some objects they have at home and take a
photograph of it. They can then bring the image to class and explain
how it represents who they are.
17
MUSIC AND SOUND
Most of the listening we encourage students to do in the language

classroom is for modelling pronunciation or comprehension purposes.
Sometimes it may be a dialogue or monologue at other times it may be
a song.
In these activities I’d like to encourage you to use sounds and music as
a prompt for creativity, particularly instrumental music and music from
other cultures or ages that your students may be less familiar with.
Particularly teenage students can have a very narrow view of what
music they like to listen to, so exposing them and yourself to a wider
range of sounds and music can help to stimulate the imagination and
encourage more open-mindedness.
Exercises
• Silence - Ask students to sit in silence for one or two minutes and
simply listen and see how many things they can hear.  
Example: Here you can see a performance of ‘4:33’ which is a silent
piece for Piano by John Cage: https://youtu.be/rDgHUj8sJaQ
• Visualising music - Ask students to listen to a piece of music with

their eyes closed and then describe what they see/ visualise.  
Example: Philip Glass -The Poet Acts: https://youtu.be/fca2oXLe9g4
• Background - Have music on in the background while students work.

You can find ambient background music here:
http://bit.ly/ambient-creative
• Music research - Ask students to find a piece of music from a

specific culture to share in class. They can tell the other students
about it and why they chose this particular piece of music.
• Musical associations - Ask students to brainstorm words they

associate with a particular piece of music while they listen. They can
then compare and share the words they wrote and try to explain the
connections.
• Musical doodles - Ask students to listen to a piece of music. Give

them some paper and ask them to doodle while they listen. They can
18
then describe and compare their doodles and see if there is anything
similar about them.
• Musical discussion - Use music as the basis for discussion. This

could include whether or what they like about it, what associations it
has for them, what it reminds them of, etc. Here are some example
sentence heads you can use to get them started. 
 
I liked ... 
I didn’t like ... 
It reminded me of ... 
I think .... would like it. 
It’s the kind of music I listen to when I’m feeling ...
• Sound collection - Ask students to use their phones to collect x

number of sounds they hear during their day. When they come to
class they can share the sounds with other students, try to guess
what they are hearing and tell each other about what they were doing
when they recorded the sounds. 
 
Example: http://bit.ly/2ZCoKml I was sitting in a coffee shop with my
daughter. We were the only people in basement and we could hear
people coming in and ordering coffee and the sounds of the coffee
being made.
• Musical sentences - Give students some sentences they have been

studying and an example song that they know and ask them to sing
the sentences or imagine themselves singing the sentences to the
tune of the song. 
 
Example: Try to sing these sentences to the tune from Madonna’s
‘Like a virgin.’: https://youtu.be/UHXGc2oWyJ4  
 
I’ve been to Paris.  
If I were rich I would give you a hundred dollars. 
Can I have a medium rare steak please?
19
PHOTOGRAPHY
For the first time in history most people carry around with them a
camera capable of taking high quality images with apps that can do in
seconds what used to take a trained photographer hours to do in a
professional darkroom.
Getting students to use their phone camera to look at, examine and
explore the world a little more carefully can be a wonderful way to
develop their creativity and make them a little more aware of the world
around them.
As with all other things creativity related, try to be accepting,

encouraging, openminded and non-judgemental about what they
create.
Exercises
• Five random images - Ask students to take five random images

before the next class and then at the beginning of the next class they
can show and talk about the images and where they found them in
pairs or groups. You can do this yourself too as a model for them.
• Image vocabulary - Ask students to make images to represent

various vocabulary words and show them in the next class. These
don’t have to be literal images of objects but can be much more
abstract words such as taste - personality - however - through. Let
the students interpret the words in any way they choose.
• Image research - Ask students to look for and take 5 or 6

photographs of specific things and bring them to the lesson. This
could be shapes, textures, faces, ears, types of leaves, almost
anything. Then in the classroom they can share their images and talk
about where and why they took them and which ones they like most.
• Image travels - Ask students to take and share images of places

they go outside of school. These don’t have to be exotic places, they
can be very simple images of their daily lives, like an image of the
supermarket, a park or car park.
20
SKETCHING AND DOODLING
Sketching and doodling doesn’t just increase creativity and problem

solving abilities as claimed by Sunni Brow, co-author of
‘Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and
Changemaker’, but according to a research study conducted at the
University of Plymouth by J. Andrade entitled “What Does Doodling
do?” it can also help to increase retention of information by up to 29%.
So the next time you spot your students doodling during a lesson be
sure not to stop them.
A number of the activities in this book involve sketching or doodling

and again this is something that you can encourage in every lesson.
Emphasise to your students that they don’t have to be great artists or
produce images of great quality. The important thing is to use the
images to help them develop, express and communicate their ideas.
Exercises
• Casual doodling - Give the students a sheet of paper to doodle or

sketch on during the lesson. They can talk about what they doodled
at the end of the lesson or the beginning of the next lesson.
• Sentence sketches - Ask the students to sketch a sentence or group

of sentences. These could be all examples of a specific verb tense
and they can compare the similarities afterwards or you could
suggest a variety of verb tenses and they could discuss how they
expressed the differences within the sketches.  
 
Example: Sketch “When I got to the party it hadn’t started.” and
“When I got to the party it started.”
• Sketch notes - Ask the students to make sketch notes of a listening

text or a written text, then ask them to compare their sketches and
see how much of the text it helps them to remember.  
 
Note: The RSA Animate series has good examples of this, though
don’t expect your students to do something as polished as this:
https://youtu.be/3-son3EJTrU
21
• Sketch words - Ask the students to do a small sketch of each of their

new vocabulary words. They can use the sketches to revise. There
are some good examples of this here: https://youtu.be/JkT3lP2kEig
• Sketch grammar - Ask the students to sketch what they know about
a grammar point without using any words in their sketch.  
 
Example: Sketch everything you know about ‘past perfect
continuous’.
• Sketch the last lesson - Ask the students to sketch what they
remember from the last lesson. Then they can compare with a partner
and help each other remember. 
 
Note: You could provide a grid for this with boxes so that students
sketch the different stages in the lesson.
22
TASTE AND SMELL
Creativity isn’t something that is limited to the arts. Cooking or the

manufacture of new perfumes is equally an act of imaginative creativity
and the creative senses of our students can equally be stimulated by
smell and taste. Engaging these senses and encouraging students to
explore them can help to stimulate their imagination and creativity and
increase their retention of information. Significant research has been
done into what’s known as the ‘The Proust Effect’ and the ability of
smells to trigger vivid memories. See Science Daily:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180723155726.htm
Exercises
• Image smells - Ask students to look at people in images and try to

imagine what they can smell.  
 
Example: Look at this image and think about what the people can
smell: http://bit.ly/378Btjq
• Tasty words - Ask students to think of a flavour for each of the

vocabulary words they are learning. Students can then try to group
words into different flavours or smells.  
 
Example: What flavour or smell would each of these words have?
• radical
• story
• freight
• exemption
• demonstrator
• incident
• skip
• extract 
• Sandwich sentences - Ask students to make the forms of sentence

structures into open top sandwiches. The subject can be the the
bread at the bottom, the butter may be the auxiliary verb, then they
can stack up different ingredients on top. They can then remember
sentence structures as different types of sandwich.
23
• Study association smells - Bring a different smell or flavour into the

classroom for the students experience when you are studying a
specific topic or grammar point.  
 
Example: Present perfect could become cinnamon or sport could be
apples.  
 
Note: Be sure you are aware of any allergies before choosing your
flavour or smell.
• Favourite smells or flavours - Ask students to describe their

favourite smells or flavours, why they like them and what they
associate with them.  
 
Example: I like the smell of summer rain. It reminds me of growing up
in the countryside and on summer holidays from school. Going on
long bike rides and sheltering from the rain under trees.
• Eating - Ask students to close their eyes and imagine themselves

eating something (this isn’t recommended for the start of a lesson
before lunch when students may be starting to get hungry) and get
them to try to imagine the flavours and the texture and consistency in
their mouth. Then get the students to describe this.
• Smells and places - Ask students to close their eyes and imagine
themselves in a place ask them to try to imagine the things they can
smell.  
 
Example: You are at the beach. What can you smell? 
Example: You are waiting for a bus and it’s raining. What can you
smell?
24
VISION BOARDS
Vision boards are collections or collages of images and text that inspire
people. They are a great way to get students noticing and sharing
things that have significance for them. There are lots of digital tools that
can make creating and sharing vision boards very simple.
https://www.pinterest.com is probably the most well-known and is
mainly used for creating collections of images or videos. More flexible
tools
like https://www.milanote.com/, https://padlet.com/ or https://www.maps
ofmind.com/ can be used to collect and make notes on more varied
forms of media.
With https://www.mapsofmind.com/ students can also show

connections and relationships between the things they collect.
Exercises
• Your future - Ask students to create a vision board of their future life.
This could include things like images of their dream house, dream
car, places they will go or study, things they would like to do, etc.  
 
Example: https://pin.it/vh765e4lkfw3fe
• Places - Ask them to create a vision board of places they want to go.
Then students can tell each other more about the places and why
they chose them. 
 
Example: https://pin.it/2mdwg7ujpwcvgq
• Bucket list - Ask students to create a bucket list vision board with
images of ten things they want to do during their life. Ask them to
discuss why they chose those things and get students to see if they
would like to trade experiences. 
 
Example: https://pin.it/rsz2sytb7dubpa
• Quotes - Ask students to create a vision board of quotes. These can

be anything that students find interesting or motivating. They can
share these and tell each other why they appeal to them. They can
exchange quotes and tell each other more about the writer of the
25
quote. 
 
Example: Education quotes: https://pin.it/biyjv5jqgmbg5q
• Works of art - Ask students to create an art vision board with images
or videos of works of art that they admire or find interesting.  
 
Example: https://pin.it/6jcr3hgh6ygaej
• Miscellaneous - Ask students to create a miscellaneous board and

collect images of anything they find interesting or creative. They can
show and tell about the things they collect there at the beginning of
the lesson.
• Revision vision - Ask students to create a board where they add

images that relate to things they have studied during the lesson. They
can then use this board to revise and help them remember key parts
of their learning.  
 
Example: This is a vision board I created while researching process
writing. https://app.milanote.com/1F9rWA11C0YheR
26
VISUALISATION
This is a simple technique we can use to encourage students to see

things in their 'mind’s eye’. This involves persuading students to close
their eyes, concentrate and visualise. To make this technique effective
you need to ensure that the classroom is quiet and the students are
calm.
When you first try this, you may find that a few students are reluctant to
close their eyes. Don’t worry too much about this, we are able to
visualise with our eyes open, though closing them can make the
images more vivid and help avoid distraction. Some students may
become disruptive during these kinds of activities as they tend to be
quite unfamiliar and people often feel threatened by that which involves
change, but if you take your time you will find that they should soon
settle. It can take some time for students to get used to this technique,
but the more often you try it the quicker they will settle and the more
useful you will find the technique.
When you do these visualisation activities with your students try to:
• Guide the students through the visualisation.
• Set the scene for them and place them in the visualisation, e.g. You
are sitting at your desk. The sun is shining. OR You are in the cinema.
The lights go out and the film begins.
• Ask the students questions, but be sure they understand that you
don’t expect answers to the questions and leave plenty of time for
them to visualise the answer before you ask another question.
• Make sure students stay silent. If they start to laugh just wait calmly
for them to relax again.
• Stay relaxed and calm yourself.
• Make their visualisations multi-sensory by asking about tastes, smells

and sounds. You can also ask about their physical or emotional
feelings.
• Keep your voice calm and don’t try to influence their visualisation by
adding drama or emotion to your words.
27
• Once the students have finished and you ask them to open their
eyes, give them a few moments to come back to the classroom.
• Give the students the opportunity to talk in small groups or pairs and
share and compare what they saw.
Exercises
• Lesson review - Ask students to try to visualise what they did in the
last lesson.  
 
Example: You could ask the students what topics they studied. Who
did they speak with? What did they see written on the board? What
new words did they learn?  
Example: You could try to guide them chronologically from when they
entered the classroom. Who did you sit next to? What exercise did we
do fist? etc.
• A meal - Ask students to visualise their dinner or another meal from

the previous day.  
 
Example: Ask the students to try to visualise sitting down and eating
it. Who was with them? What was the first dish? What did they eat first
from their plate? What did they leave until last? Ask them to try to
imagine the flavours in their mouth.
• A film - Ask students to visualise the last film they saw.  

 
Example: Ask them to think about who they went with. Where did they
sit? What did they eat? Ask them to try to remember the sound of the
music in the cinema the moment the lights went out. Ask them to
visualise the opening scene and try to hear the music.
• A text - Read a short text and ask students to visualise what they see
while you read it. This could be something as short and simple as a
sentence or could be a longer text from your course book. 
 
Example: Say “There are three people waiting for a bus.” Then ask
the students to try to imagine what they are wearing. Are the carrying
anything? What are they doing as they wait? What is the weather like?
How do they feel? What can they hear?
28
• A role play - You can ask students to visualise a role play before they
do it.  
 
Example: If you want students to role play buying a bus ticket, ask
them to close their eyes and imagine themselves at the bus station.
Ask them to try to imagine walking up to the counter. Ask them to
imagine what the ticket seller looks like and what he or she says. Ask
them to try to imagine their dialogue with the ticket seller. Then ask
them to imagine walking away from ticket office with their ticket. Ask
them to imagine how they feel at having successfully bought their
ticket using English.
• Character from a text - You can review any listening or reading text
you have done with students by asking them to imagine they are one
of the people involved in the text.  
 
Example: If your students have been reading Cinderella, you can ask
them to imagine they are one of the ugly sisters. Ask them to visualise
the ball. What are they wearing? What does the prince look like? How
do they feel when they speak to the prince? What does the music
sound like? What do they eat and drink? How do they feel when they
see the prince? How do they feel when they see the beautiful
mysterious princess arrive? How do they feel when they see the
prince dance with her?
29
ACTIVITIES
This part of the book contains 30 activities with step-by-step instruction and
links to digital presentations that contain all the materials you need to deliver
the activities in your classroom. You can use these with your students to help
develop a range of language skills as well as their imagination and creativity.
Each activity has a suggested language point and procedure with step by
step instructions to help understand how the activities work in the classroom.
The presentations materials are just examples. Feel free to adapt the materials
or create your own materials that fit better for your own students, their level
and interests and your understanding of their needs.
30
COMPLETE THE In this activity students recreate a film plot by watching a short
clip or trailer from the film and then imagining the rest of the
PLOT story.
Language point:
Present tenses
Time: 30 - 40 minutes
Level: Intermediate
Preparation:
Find some short clips or trailers from films. Ideally these should
be ones your students are unlikely to have seen.
31
Stimulate students’ COMPLETE THE PLOT

imagination with short
video clips
Materials:
The presentation includes links to six animated video clips that you can
use for this activity.
You can use one as an example together or you can split the class and
have one half look at each clip.
Link: http://bit.ly/hackingcreativity1
Procedure:
• Show one of the video clips to your students.
• Put the students into pairs or groups and ask them try to guess the
relationship between the characters and expand on the plot and
scenario of the film.
• Ask the students to try to imagine what happened before the clip and
what will happen after it.
• Ask the students to make notes about the plot of the film and who the
main characters are.
• Regroup the students into pairs and ask them to tell their version of
the film and find out how the two versions are different.
• You can ask the students to find ten differences in their versions of
the film.
• You can repeat this process with another clip or give the groups of
students different clips to work with.
32
CREATIVE In this activity students create their own wise quotes based on
parts of original quotes. They can then add images to the quotes
QUOTES and share them.
Language point:
Various
Level: Intermediate
Preparation:
Collect together 8 to 10 quotes. These could be about a specific

topic that you are studying or they could be about a range of
things. See the presentation for examples.
33
Get students playing CREATIVE QUOTES

with words by using
quotes
Materials:
The presentation includes a collection of quotes with some of the words

blanked out. You can find the complete quotes at the end of the
presentation.
Procedure:
• Ask your students if they know of any common wise quotes.
• Get them to share what they know and which ones they like best.
• Tell the students you want them to share their own wisdom, but that
you will help them a little.
• Show the students the first part of a quote and ask them to think of
ten ways they could complete it.
• Get suggestions from around the class.
• Now show them your list of quotes and ask them to work alone and
try to think of 10 - 20 ways to complete each one.
• Put the students into pairs or small groups and ask them to share
their quotes and choose the ones they like most.
• Once they have chosen the favourite quotes you can show
them: https://pablo.buffer.com/ On this site they can add their quotes
to images and share them online or download them.
34
EMPATHY In this activity students visualise themselves in an image and try

to imagine what the person or animal is thinking or feeling.
IMAGES
Language point:
Present continuous
Time: 15 + minutes
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Collect together 4 - 6 images of people or animals in different or

difficult situations. Alternatively you can use the presentation.
35
Encourage students to EMPATHY IMAGES

use their imagination to
help them empathise
with others. Materials:
The presentation includes a collection of images that you can use for
this activity.
Procedure:
• Show the students one of the images
• Ask them to look at it very carefully and try to notice every detail.
• Now ask them to close their eyes and try to imagine they are the
person/animal in the image.
• Ask the students to try to imagine what they are thinking, hoping and
feeling. What can they see? What can they smell and hear?
• Ask the students to open their eyes.
• Now put the students into pairs to share their thoughts and feelings.
• You can repeat this process with some of the other images.
• If possible try to finish with a humorous image.
36
GENDER In this activity, students explore the role of gender in fairy tales.
They do this by changing the gender of the main characters and
CHANGE FAIRY seeing how this changes the story.
TALES
Language point:
Present tenses
Level: Low Intermediate
Preparation:
Choose some fairy tales that your students are familiar with. You
can find the originals at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/131
37
Use fairy tales to get GENDER CHANGE FAIRY TALES

students to imagine
how gender influences
our view of the world Materials:
The example presentation includes an image of Cinderella that you can

use to get students thinking about the story.
Procedure:
• Use one of the fairy tales as an example to do together with the

class.
• You could use Cinderella as this is a very common story across
cultures.
• Ask your students to share what they remember of the story.
• Now ask them to try to imagine that Cinderella was a boy and the
ugly sisters were brothers.
• Ask the students to think how the story would be different.
• For example, What would the fairy godmother provide for him to help
him go to the ball?
• Would there still be a glass slipper in the story?
• Put the students into groups to think of other possible changes to the
story. Get the groups to share their changes.
• Next, give each group a different fairy tale and ask them to to change
the gender of the characters and retell the story.
• Tell them they can make other gender changes within the story if they
wish.
• Once they have finished changing the story, regroup the students
and ask them to tell their stories to the rest of their group.
• Ask the groups to discuss which story changed the most and why
they think it changed more.
• This could also lead into a debate on gender stereotypes and the
impact these have on men and women.
38
GUIDED In this activity you help your students visualise a symbolic

journey. They have to listen to the journey with their eyes closed
VISUALISATION and imagine what they see along the way. They then describe
and analyse the the symbols in the journey.
Language point:
Past and present tenses
Level: Intermediate
Preparation:
Write down or memorise the order of the things your students see
and do in the guided journey.
39
Use a guided journey GUIDE VISUALISATION

to help develop
students’ ability to
visualise Materials:
The presentation includes the steps in the visualisation process and

some questions to ask, as well as a graphic with the links to the symbol
rubric. The presentation is only for your use, the students don’t need to
see it.
Procedure:
• Make sure your students are calm and relaxed.
• Ask them to close their eyes and tell them you are going to take them
on a journey.
• Once everyone has their eyes closed and is quiet, ask them to try to
imagine that they are walking along a path.
• Ask them to try to visualise the path in their mind and try to see what
is around them.
• Ask them to think about how they are feeling as they walk along the
path.
• Tell them that the path leads into a forrest. Ask them to try to imagine
the forest.
• Tell them that as they walk through the forrest they come to a clearing
where there are no trees.
• Ask them to try to imagine what they see in the clearing.
• As they look around the clearing, tell them they see a cup and they
pick up the cup and look at it closely.
• Next they see some water.
• Ask them to think about the water and how they feel about the water.
What do they do with the water?
40
• Tell the students they carry on into the forest again and walk further.
It's getting late and it starts to get darker.
• Tell them as they come to the end of the forest they see a wall.
• Ask them to try to imagine what the wall looks like.
• Ask them how they feel about the wall.
• Tell them that as they look at the wall they see a key next to a door in
the wall.
• Tell them to pick up the key and examine it.
• Finally, tell them to use the key to open the door.
• Ask the students to imagine what they see on the other side of the
wall.
• Ask the students to open their eyes.
• Give them a few moments to try to remember their journey.
• Then put the students into pairs to describe their journey.
• Once they have described their journey, tell them that each of the
things in the journey are symbols that represent something about their
life.
• Ask the students to try to guess what each of the things in the journey
represent.
• Tell them about the symbols
41
IMAGE In this activity, groups of students use images of unrelated

people, animals and objects to create the scenario of a film. They
SCENARIOS then fuse different elements from two of the scenarios to create a
new one.
Language point:
Present tenses
Time: 40 - 60 mins
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Collect together some unrelated images of people, objects,

places and animals or you can use the ones on the presentation.
42
Use a collection of IMAGE SCENARIOS

images to encourage
students to make
connections and build Materials:
narrative
The presentation includes images of people, animals and objects to
help you gradually build a story with your students.
Procedure:
• Put your students into pairs or groups.
• Show your students some pictures of people. Tell them that the
people are all characters from a film or story.
• Ask them to discuss what they think the relationships are between the
people.
• Once they have done this, show the students images of two
buildings. Once again ask them to discuss how these buildings relate
to the scenario of story.
• Next add an image of a thing or animal, again get the students to

combine this into their existing scenario.
• Keep adding in images for the students to combine into the scenario.
• When you have added all of the images, ask students to review their
complete scenario and prepare to tell the other students about it.
• Regroup the students and ask them to tell their new partner the about
the scenario they invented.
• Whilst they listen, they should make notes about the elements of the
scenario they liked best.
• Next ask the students to try to combine the best elements of each
scenario together to create a new one.
• You could also ask them to write a short scene from the story.
43
IMAGE In this activity students work as groups to create interview

questions for someone in an image. They then try to imagine the
INTERVIEWS answers and write a short magazine article about the image.
Language point:
Question forms
Time: 30 - 50 mins
Level: Low intermediate +
Preparation:
Find some images of people (or creatures). These could even be

works of art, such as the Mona Lisa.
44
Use images to stimulate IMAGE INTERVIEWS

students imagination
and ability to
empathise Materials:
The presentation includes images of people and animals that students

can select to interview.
Procedure:
• Put your students into small groups or pairs and show them one of
the images from the presentation.
• Give the students a time limit of 10 - 15 minutes and ask the students
to brainstorm and write down as many questions as they can that
they could ask the person/creature in the image.
• Tell the students to focus on the quantity of questions, not quality. You
could make this competitive and see which group can think of the
most questions.
• Once the students have produced their list of questions, ask them to
choose the ten most interesting questions.
• Then ask them to work in pairs and try to imagine the answers to the
questions.
• Once they have the answers, ask them to use the answers to write a
short magazine article to accompany the image.
• You could also ask students to imagine they are the person in the
image and record a monologue of the person talking about
themselves.
• You can get students to record their monologue on their phone or find
an app to produce this using the image at:
https://www.motionportrait.com/en/apps/photospeak/ (for iOS) 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speakpic&hl=en_
GB (for Android)
45
LET’S TAKE A RISK This activity is based around dangerous or extreme sports and
activities. Students have to imagine ways to convince someone
to try these activities.
Language point:
Language of persuasion
Modals of possibility
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Preparation:
Find an image or group of images of extreme sports or similarly

dangerous activities.
46
Use image of LET’S TAKE A RISK

dangerous activities to
help students develop
their powers of Materials:
persuasion
The example presentation includes images of people doing extreme
sports and dangerous activities.
Procedure:
• Show the students the first of the images and ask them to think about
all the things that could go wrong and what makes the activity
dangerous.
• Next put the students into pairs.
• Ask student A to try to convince student B to try the activity. Student B

should resist and make excuses.
• Show the students the next image.
• Ask the students to change roles and ask student B to try to convince
student A to try the activity.
• You can repeat the exercise a number of times.
• Once they have seen all of the images you could ask students to
decide which of the activities they would most like to do and which
they would least want to do.
• You could finish this activity by getting students to create ‘Would you
do it if … ?’ questions. Example: “Would you do it if … I gave you
$10,000?”
• They can then ask and answer the questions.
47
MAD SONG LIPS In this activity students create their own version of a song using
the lyrics from an original song. It’s based around the ‘mad lips’
idea, but requires that students brainstorm a number of possible
words for each gap.
Language Point:
This depends on the song.
Level: This depends on the song
Preparation:
Find the lyrics from a song you would like to do with your
students. Take out some of the key content words.
This activity works best if the song is one they don’t know.
48
Use song lyrics to get MAD SONG LIPS

students developing
their verbal creativity
Materials:
The example presentation includes the lyrics from two songs with gaps
already added. There is also a link to a video of each of the songs so
that students can listen to the original.
Procedure:
• Show your students a copy of the lyrics with the gaps.
• Ask them to brainstorm ten words that could go into each gap.
• Then put the students in pairs and ask them to compare their lists of
words and choose the ones they like most to complete the song.
• Once the students have completed their new song lyrics they can
compare them with a new partner.
Optional:
• Next play the original song and get the students to fill in the missing
words from the original.
• Ask them which version they preferred.
Note: To find the lyrics to songs, go to Google and type in lyrics,

followed by the name of the song. This will usually find the lyrics to
most songs available online.
49
MARKETING In this activity students try to think about how they can use video
clips to market products. They start by discussing
CONNECTIONS advertisements they like and find memorable and then look at a
video that they could use as part of an advertisement. They also
learn how to use a simple video editing tool.
Language Point:
Modals of probability
Time: 30 mins +
Level: Intermediate
Preparation:
Familiarise yourself with how to use Kapwing to trim and

download video clips: https://www.kapwing.com/trim-video
50
Use marketing videos MARKETING CONNECTIONS

to get students thinking
about and making
connections Materials:
The presentation includes a film that you can use as an example. There
is also a link to a video trimming tool and a tutorial showing how to use
it.
Procedure:
• Ask the students to think about an advertisement they liked or found

really memorable.
• Put the students in groups to discuss and describe the

advertisements
• Now show the groups a short film clip and tell them to try to think of
how they could use it to advertise a product.
• Once the groups have planned their advertisements, they can

change groups and share their suggestions.
• Next ask them to go to YouTube and find other films that they could
use for marketing products.
• They can trim the clips from YouTube using:

https://www.kapwing.com/trim-video
• They could even use their video camera on a phone to add in their
own product advertisement to the clip.
51
MASHUP In this activity students pair up ordinary products and try to

invent a new product from them. They then decide which are the
INVENTIONS most useful/useless products.
Language Point:
Language of description
Level: Elementary
Preparation:
Collect some images of common products
52
Use images to get MASHUP INVENTIONS

students thinking about
new inventions
Materials:
The presentation includes links to pairs of images that you can use to
get students to create their own inventions. There are also links to two
articles with examples of inventions.
Procedure:
• Ask students if they can think of any products that were made by
combining two other products.
• Point out a few examples of inventions that were combinations of two

things that already existed.
• The Printing Press - Combination of wine press and coin punch
• The Fax machine - combination of telephone and photocopier
• The Alarm Clock - Combination of bell and clock
• See if the students can think of other combinations.
• Now put the students into groups and show them images of two
unrelated objects.
• Ask them to think of ways they could be combined to create

something new.
• Alternatively you could show them an image collage and ask the to
pairs up the images into new products.
• Once they have finished get the groups to compare their new
products and try to decide which ones would be the most/least useful
and the most/least likely to be financially successful.
• You could also ask students to design a marketing campaign for their
product.
53
• You could also finish by showing the students some of the examples
from these pages and asking them to decide which ones they think
are most useful/creative.
• https://brightside.me/creativity-design/80-amazingly-creative-inve
ntions-and-concept-designs-115305/
• https://www.boredpanda.com/useful-creative-inventions/
54
MIND READING In this activity students try to guess what people may be thinking
thinking. Having images with groups of people works well, as do
more unusual images.
Language point:
Modals of probability - ‘He must be...’ ‘She might be...’
Time: 10 - 15 mins
Level: Intermediate
Preparation:
Collect together some interesting and ordinary images of people.
Add some speech or thought bubbles. You can do this

using: https://phraseit.net/
55
Use images to get MIND READING

students to look at and
try to understand
people more closely Materials:
The presentation includes images of people with empty thought

bubbles over their heads. You can use these to help students to read
their minds.
Procedure:
• Put the students into pairs or small groups.
• Show students the first of the images and ask them to brainstorm 20
things that the person may be thinking.
• Get the students to share their ideas and discuss which is most likely
and which is least likely.
• You could add another level to this activity by telling them what
emotion the person/people in the image are feeling.
• Repeat this with more images.
56
MYSTERIOUS This activity is based around mysteries and logic problems.

These problems are usually used to test the way people think
PROBLEMS and encourage them to think logically, but in this activity we are
encouraging students to think more divergently. Once they have
brainstormed possible and impossible solutions, they have to
pick the most bizarre solutions and then convince their partner
that this is the genuine solution.
Language point:
Modals of possibility
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Level: Intermediate +
Preparation:
Find some interesting logic puzzles, mysteries or brain teasers.
57
Use mysterious MYSTERIOUS PROBLEMS

problems to get
students thinking
divergently and trying Materials:
to solve problems
The presentation includes example mysteries for the students to solve.
Note: You can find some more examples here:

https://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/Mystery.html
Procedure:
• Show the students a mystery/logic problem.
• Check that they understand the problem.
• Now put the students into groups of 4 - 5 and give them a time limit of
five minutes
• Ask them to think of twenty solutions to the problem. Make sure they
understand that the only limit for the solutions is their imagination and
that anything is possible.
• Make sure that someone is taking notes of the solutions.
• Now ask them to look back at their solutions and decide which four
are the most rational/possible solutions and which four are the most
unlikely solutions.
• Ask the students to disregard the possible solutions and choose one
of the more impossible ones.
• Now regroups the students into pairs. Make sure they are partnered
with a students from a different group.
• Ask them to try to persuade their partner that their solution to the
problem is the real one.
58
PERSONAL In this activity students create short plays based on images of

groups of people. In the activity they also have to think carefully
MOTIVATION about motivation and how people can use language to try to
achieve their goals.
Language Point:
Polite requests
Preparation:
Collect some images of groups of people in everyday situations.
59
Use images of people PERSONAL MOTIVATION

to get students thinking
about and
understanding people’s Materials:
motivation
The presentation includes a collection of eight images that students
can use for the activity.
Procedure:
• Show the students one of the images.
• Put the students into groups with the same number of people on each
group as the number of people in the image.
• Ask the students to discuss what the people are doing and what their
relationship is. Get the students to give each of the people names.
• Now assign one person in the image to each of the students in the
group. Ask the students to think about what that person’s motivation.
This could include what the person wants from the others and why
they are there.
• Now ask the students to try to move themselves into the position their
character is in the picture. Tell the students to keep very still until you
say ‘action’.
• Once you say action they should become the person in the picture
and try to achieve their goals.
• Give the students 4 - 5 minutes to act out their scene.
• Once they have finished ask the students to discuss together whether
they achieved their goals and what problems they had trying to
achieve them.
• You could also get the students to think about what

language/expressions they needed to help them achieve their goals.
• Ask the students to look at more groups of people and try to imagine
what their motivation is.
60
POEM HALVES In this activity students use their imagination and creativity to
recreate their own version of a poem. They then share their
poems together and compare them to the originals.
Language point:
Vocabulary development
Time: 15 + minutes
Level: This depends on the poems you choose
Preparation:
Find some short poems with up to about 10 lines. You can find a
huge collection of poems at: https://www.poemhunter.com
Delete the second part of each line or take out selective content
words.
61
Use poems to develop POEM HALVES

students linguistic
imagination
Materials:
The example presentation includes four poems that you can use for this
activity. There are also links to the original version of each of the
poems.
Procedure:
• Ask the students to work alone or in pairs.
• Show the students a poem with the words missing.
• Ask the students to read through the poem and brainstorm five words
or phrases to complete each line of the poem.
• Then put the students with a new partner and ask them to compare
their word lists and choose the words they like best to complete them
poem.
• You can repeat this process with a number of poems or just use one.
• Get the students to share their poems.
• Afterwards you may like to show the students the original poems and
they can compare and see how theirs are different.
62
SHOW AND TELL ’Show and Tell’ is a common classroom game in which students
bring a personal object into class that has some special
IMAGES significance to them. They tell the other students about it.
In this activity students play ’Show and Tell’ but they have to
imagine the connection between people and objects in images.
Language point:
Past simple + Present perfect
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Collect a number of images of people and the same number of

images of objects.
63
Use images to get SHOW AND TELL IMAGES

students thinking about
the people who created
the image and why Materials:
they created it
The presentation includes pairs of example images and people. You
can use these for the activity.
Preparation:
• Ask the students if they know what ’Show and Tell’ is. Explain the
concept to them.
• Put the students into pairs or small groups.
• Show the students one of the people and one of the objects.
• Ask them to discuss what they think the relationship is between the
person and the object and create a background story about why it
has personal significance for them.
• Repeat this with a number of people and objects.
• Put the students into new groups or pairs and ask them to tell each
other about the people and objects.
64
SIX DEGREES OF In this activity students create a fictional chain of connections to

a famous person. The activity is based on the concept of six
SEPARATION degrees of separation. In this theory it is believed that every
person on the planet can be casually connected to any other
through five intermediary relationships with other people. In the
activity students have to create their own chains of relationship.
Language point:
Past tenses + relationship vocabulary
Level: Low Intermediate +
Preparation:
Create your own six degrees of separation story to use as an

example (or use the one on the presentation).
65
Get students imagining SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION

their connections to
other people around
the world Materials:
The presentation includes an example connection story and an image

of Barak Obama
Procedure:
• Tell students about the theory of 6 degrees of separation.
• Ask them if they think it is true that you can connect any two people
by adding 5 people in between.
• Show them the example from the presentation or make up your own.
• Then suggest a famous person and ask the students to work alone
and invent their own story of how they are connected to that person.
• Put the students into groups to share their connection stories.
• Ask them to decide whose story was the most

believable/unbelievable.
• Ask the students to choose their own famous person and create
another connection story to share with the class.
66
STORYBOARDING In this activity students use a storyboard to try to visualise their

goals and what they need to do to achieve them. It is based
SUCCESS around a storyboarding technique that students can use to
understand and attempt to solve problems.
Language point:
Future tenses
Preparation:
Prepare a 2 by 4 grid as a template for your students to use in

the activity.
67
Get students using STORYBOARDING SUCCESS

storyboards to imagine
their own future
Materials:
The example presentation includes an example storyboard grid.
Procedure:
• Give each of your students a 2 by 4 grid with 8 cells in.
• Ask them to sketch a picture of themselves in the classroom studying

in the first cell.
• Next ask them to close their eyes and try to imagine themselves X
years in the future when they are a fluent English speaker.
• Ask the students to make a sketch in the last of the eight cells that
represents this image of success.
• Next ask them to think about the challenges and tasks they need to
do to become this successful person in the future.
• Ask the students to use the remaining squares in the grid to sketch in
the tasks they need to do and the steps they need to take to become
the successful person in the future.
• Put the students in pairs or small groups and get them to share their
success stories.
68
STORY FROM In this activity students create their own story using a set of
comprehension questions for support. They use their imagination
QUESTIONS to answer the questions and then use their own answers to
create their own version of the story. This idea originates from
‘Once Upon a Time’ by John Morgan and Mario Rinvolucri. It’s a
wonderful book that has lots more creative ideas for using stories
in the ELT classroom.
Language point:
Narrative tenses. You can imply which verb forms you want
students to use by including them in the questions.
Time: 30 - 40 mins
Preparation:
Find a short story. It should be one that isn’t too well known as
the activity will work best if the students don’t know the story.
Create 8 to 10 questions about the story.
69
Get students creating STORY FROM QUESTIONS

narrative from
questions
Materials:
The presentation includes an example list of questions based on the

short story ‘A Very Old man with Enormous Wings’ by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez:
Procedure:
• Put the students into pairs and give them the questions, but not the
story.
• Ask them to read through all the questions and check they
understand the vocabulary in the questions.
• Now ask the students to use their imagination to answer the

questions.
• Once they have answered the questions, ask them to work together
to use their answers to create the story.
• Get the pairs to rehearse their story and try to remember it all.
• Ask the pairs to change partners and tell their new partner their story.
• Ask the students to listen to each others’ story and see how similar
they are and what differences there are.
• If you want to you can finish by telling the students the original story.
• You could also get the students to write their stories or record them
using their phone.
This activity is adapted from one I first read in ‘Once upon a Time:
Using Stories in the Language Classroom’ (Cambridge Handbooks for
Language Teachers) by John Morgan (Author), Mario Rinvolucri
(Contributor)
70
STORY FROM In this activity students will visualise a scene from a film by
listening to some of the sound effects. They will then try to create
SOUNDS the next scene from the film.
Language point:
Narrative tenses
Level: Low Intermediate +
Preparation:
Collect together or record a collection of sounds. You can find

sounds at:
• https://www.zapsplat.com/
• http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/
• https://www.audiomicro.com/free-sound-effects
• https://freesound.org
71
Use sounds to stimulate STORY FROM SOUNDS

students imagination
and creativity
Materials:
The example presentation includes a slide with links to ten example

sounds. You can click on these sounds in any order to create your
movie sound track.
Procedure:
• Tell your students you are going to play a short part of a film.
• Ask them to close their eyes.
• Ask your students to listen to the sounds and try to visualise what is
happening in the film.
• Play the sounds then ask the students to open their eyes.
• Put the students into pairs to share what they imagined.
• Ask them to try to imagine the characters in the film and which actors
would play them.
• Tell the students to work together and try to think what would happen
in the next scene of the film.
72
THE COLOUR OF This activity is a vocabulary revision activity which may help your
students to remember words. They group words according to
WORDS their colour. If this technique works for the students you can ask
them to group all of their vocabulary by colour.
Language point:
Vocabulary
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Choose a set of 8 - 10 words that your students have studied

recently.
73
Help students to THE COLOUR OF WORDS

memories words by
visualising them as
colours Materials:
The example presentation includes a slide with a picture of a rainbow.

You can use this to check the names of colours or to get feedback on
where each of the words belongs.
Procedure:
• Ask the students to close their eyes.
• Tell them you will read a list of words and as they hear each word they
should try to imagine it as a colour.
• Read the words slowly, leaving a long pause after each word.
• When you have finished the list ask the students to open their eyes.
• Ask them to write down as many of the words as they can remember
and the colour that they associated with the words.
• Put the students into pairs or small groups and ask them to tell the
other students which colours they associated with each of the words.
• Ask them to see if other students associated the same colours with
any of the words.
• Now ask the students to put the words into colour groups and try to
add two more new words to each colour group.
74
THE ELECTION This activity is based around the idea of an election manifesto. It
helps students to think more critically about the role of
government and and the challenges each government faces. It
also gives them some insight into the voting process and how
voters decide who they will vote for. The activity also shows that
imagination and creativity are also necessary within politics as
politicians need to be able to imagine and create a vision of the
future.
Language point:
Future tenses + Past tenses
Time: 1 hour +
Preparation:
None
75
Get students thinking THE ELECTION

creatively about politics
and how it impacts on
our lives Materials:
The example presentation includes a slide with a list of 12 common

government departments
Procedure:
• Put the students into groups of 4 - 5 and ask them to brainstorm the
main departments of a government.
• Once they have around 8 - 10 functions, ask them to discuss what

they think the main challenges are for each department.
• Ask them to make notes of the main challenges for each of these
departments.
• Next ask some of the students to change groups and share their
thoughts with the new group.
• Now tell the students that they are members of the government for
fictional country X. Tell them that their term of office is coming to an
end and there will be an election soon.
• Ask them to prepare an election manifesto laying out their plans for
each of the main departments over the next few years.
• Once they are ready ask the groups to present their manifesto to the
class.
• Ask the students to listen to each manifesto and decide which group
they will vote for.
• Once the election is finished and a group has been chosen, ask the
students to regroup and discuss what factors most influenced their
choice of party.
• You could also ask the students to write their manifesto and provide a
range of sentence stems for them.
• © PeacheyPublications 2018
76
THE FUTURE OF In this activity students try to imagine life in fifty years time.
Students try to visualise a simple aspect of life. They then share
their ideas in groups and prepare a short presentation of their
collective vision of the future.
Language point:
Future tenses for prediction
Time: 45 mins +
Preparation:
None
77
Get students thinking THE FUTURE OF

about and trying to
imagine the future
Materials:
The example presentation includes a slide with a list of 12 common

aspects of life that students could think about.
Procedure:
• Ask the students to choose a very ordinary aspect of life. This could
be something as simple as cooking or buying food or it could be
something more complex like building a house
• Now ask the students to think 50 years into the future.
• Ask them to close their eyes and try to imagine and visualise how this
aspect of daily life will have changed.
• Now ask the students to open their eyes.
• Put the students into small groups and ask them to describe to their
group the changes they saw.
• Ask the groups to prepare a short presentation about the future, using
the ideas they shared in their group.
• Get the students to deliver their presentations to the class.
• They should listen and try to decide which group had the most
optimistic view of the future and which was more pessimistic.
78
THE SALES PITCH This activity is based around the idea of trying to sell a simple
household object like a spoon. The activity pushes students to
use brainstorming techniques to think of ideas for their sales
pitch and forces them to be more creative by restricting them to
use only the bad ideas.
Language point:
‘You can use it to ...’ ‘It’s very good for...’
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Preparation:
Collect together some images of ordinary household objects.
79
Get students to be THE SALES PITCH

creative about how
they persuade and
influence people Materials:
The example presentation includes a selection of slides with images of

ordinary objects.
Procedure:
• Show the students a simple household object (You can use the image
from the example materials), such as a spoon and ask them to look
carefully at it and try to see its qualities.
• Once they have had time to examine the spoon, put the students into
pairs or small groups and ask them to brainstorm 20 - 30 things
someone could do with a spoon. Tell the students to focus on quantity
rather than quality of ideas.
• Set a strict time limit of around ten minutes for this exercise so that
students are forced to think quickly and not examine or judge their
ideas.
• Once the groups have their ideas, ask them to separate their ideas
into three groups; ones that they think are ordinary ideas (e.g. add
sugar to tea.), ones that are not so ordinary (e.g. open a tin of paint)
and ones that are strange ideas (e.g. dig a hole for a swimming
pool.).
• Next ask the students to disregard the ordinary and the not so
ordinary ideas.
• Now working with only the strange ideas they should formulate a
sales pitch to try to persuade someone to buy the spoon.
• Once they have prepared their pitch, regroup the students with a new
partner and ask the pairs to try to sell each other their spoons.
• You can repeat this process with different objects. They could also do
their sales pitch as a class presentation.
80
THE In this activity students listen to music and try to visualise an

imaginary scene from a film. They then work in pairs to combine
SOUNDTRACK their ideas into one film scenario.
FROM THE FILM
Language point:
Present tenses
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Choose a piece of instrumental music.
81
Use music to stimulate THE SOUNDTRACK FROM THE FILM

students’ imagination
Materials:
The example presentation includes a collection of slides with videos of

evocative music that you can use for this activity (Seeing the videos is
unimportant. They just need to hear them.)
Procedure:
• Tell your students that they are going to listen to the soundtrack from
a film.
• Ask them to close their eyes and listen to the music.
• As they listen ask them to try to imagine what is happening in the film.
• Play around 2 - 3 minutes of the music.
• Ask your students to open their eyes.
• Put the students into pairs and ask them to share what they imagined.
• Ask the students to try to combine their visions of the film together
into one film scenario.
• Get the pairs to share their ideas with the class.
82
THE STORY This activity is based around images and looking behind the
image at the photographer, why they created the image and what
BEHIND THE their relationship to it was. In the activity the students have to
IMAGE empathise with and become the photographer. You can follow up
this activity up by getting students to talk about their own
images. The activity will work better with images they created
some time ago.
Language point:
Narrative tenses - ‘I took this photograph while I was ... ,’ ‘I had

been …’
Prepositions of place - ‘The man at the back is...’
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Level: Elementary +
Preparation:
Collect some interesting images. If possible include some that

you created yourself.
83
Use images to get the THE STORY BEHIND THE IMAGE

students trying to
empathise with the
photographer Materials:
The example presentation includes a collection of images that you can

use for the activity.
Procedure:
• Show the students the image that you created and tell them about
your relationship to the subject of the photograph and a little about
yourself at the time you created the image, how old you were, why
you took it, etc.
• Now show the students the first of the images you collected.
• Ask them to try to imagine the profile of the photographer and the
relationship of the photographer to the image.
• Get them to share their ideas with the class.
• Next put the students into pairs and give each student one image to
think about.
• Ask them to imagine they are the photographer.
• Ask the students to tell their partner about the image and themselves
at the time when they took it.
• Get the students who are listening to ask questions and try to find
more information.
• Repeat this process with a number of images.
• Ask students to bring their own image(s) along to the next class and
repeat the process using their own images.
84
THE STORY OF In this activity students imagine they are a discarded object.
They then create an autobiography of where they came from and
RUBBISH who owned and discarded them.
Language Point:
Narrative tenses
Time: 20 minutes
Level: Low intermediate
Preparation:
Find an image of an object that has been discarded. It could be

something as simple as the wrapper from some food, a child’s
toy or a wrecked car.
85
Use images of THE STORY OF RUBBISH

discarded objects to get
students to imagine and
create the story of the Materials:
object
The example presentation includes a collection of images of discarded
objects, from airplanes to banana skins, that you can use for the
activity.
Procedure:
• Show the students the image.
• Ask the students to imagine they are that object.
• Ask them to try to imagine where they were created, who bought and
owned them, what happened to them and how they were used and
then discarded.
• Ask the students to write their biography in three sentences or three

paragraphs.
• The first sentence or paragraph should be about where they were

created and the third sentence or paragraph should be how they
came to be discarded.
• The second sentence or paragraph should be about what happened

in between.
• Once the students have produced their story they should partner up
and tell each other the stories.
• If students enjoy this activity you could repeat the process with other
images or get students to find their own images.
• You can also get students to exchange stories and then write about
the future of the discarded objects and what happens to them.
• You could also ask students to choose one of the objects and do
some research to find out about the environmental impact of each of
these products, e.g. How many are produced each year? How much
86
Use images of energy does it take? How are the recycled? What impact do they
discarded objects to get have on the environment? etc.
students to imagine and
create the story of the © PeacheyPublications 2018
object
This activity was developed from one by Jill and Charlie Hadfield that I
first read when editing ‘Integrating global issues in the creative English
language classroom’.
87
THE VILLAIN In this activity students have to imagine themselves in the role of
a, film, folk story or fairy tale villain. They should try to see the
story from the villain’s perspective. The villain should imagine
themselves to be the innocent victim of the story.
Language point:
Narrative tenses
Expressions of sympathy
Time: 20 - 40 mins
Level: Low intermediate
Preparation:
Choose 2 - 4 common film plots or folk stories that your students

will know.
88
Use images of villains THE VILLAIN

to encourage students
to empathise withe
people who have very Materials:
different views of the
world The example presentation has slides with 8 example villains and links
to background information about the story.
Procedure:
• Put your students into pairs or small groups.
• Brainstorm some fair tales or fictional films that have a main villain.
• Ask each group to think about one of the stories and see how much
they can remember.
• Ask your students to make a list of the characters in the story.
• Now tell your students to imagine they are the villain of the story.
• As the villain they should think of themselves as an innocent victim in

the story.
• Ask them to think about and discuss the story from the perspective of
the villain.
• Now regroup the students so that they are working with people who
had a different story.
• Ask them to try to retell the story from their perspective. Ask the
listeners to try to sympathise with the speaker.
89
THINGS YOU This activity is based around the concept of creative recycling.
Students brainstorm ideas for reusing newspapers. They then
CAN DO WITH A watch a video with 10 examples of newspapers being reused.
NEWSPAPER You can use this activity to lead into a general discussion on
recycling or you could get students to do research into other
throwaway products that could be recycled.
Language point:
‘You can use it to …’ or the passive form ‘It can be used to ...’
Level: Low intermediate +
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Preparation:
Find a newspaper or an image of one.
90
Get students thinking THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A NEWSPAPER

about objects and how
they can be used for
‘out of the box’ Materials:
purposes
The example presentation has a single slide of a newspaper followed
by a second slide with the video about things you can use newspapers
for. Show the students the video after they have thought of their own
ideas.
Procedure:
• Bring a newspaper into class and show it to your students (You could
use the image in the example materials).
• Ask the students if they still buy or read newspapers.
• Tell the students that newspaper manufacturers have a problem and

they need to encourage more people to buy their newspapers.
• Put the students into small groups and ask them to brainstorm 20 - 30
things that you can use a newspaper for in addition to reading it.
• Give a few examples and make sure they understand that the ideas
don’t need to be too serious.
• For example, you can use it to sleep under or you can use it prop
open a door.
• Give them a strict time limit of 5 - 10 minutes.
• Stress that you want them to focus on quantity of ideas, not quality.
• Once the students have finished ask them to choose the four most
creative ideas and the four ‘worst’ ideas from their group.
• Get the groups to share their ideas.
• You can finish by showing the students this video and asking them to
watch and see if any of their ideas are
shown: https://youtu.be/vlhyP_aBwys
91
• You can also ask students to think about or research other products
that they think should be recycled such as plastic cups, drinking
straws, plastic bottles, old CDs and DVDs.
92
UNRELATED In this activity students work with groups of 4 - 5 unrelated words

to produce a text that connects all of the words in some way. It’s
WORDS important for this activity that you choose words that are
unrelated as research shows that people are more likely to be
creative when they are trying to connect unrelated concepts.
Language point:
Vocabulary revision
Time: 20 - 30 mins
Level: This depends on the level of the words.
Preparation:
Prepare 4 - 5 groups of unrelated words that you want your

students to revise. Have 5 words in each group. You can use:
https://randomwordgenerator.com/ to create random word lists.
93
Exercise students’ UNRELATED WORDS

creativity by getting
them to make links and
connections between Materials:
unrelated words
The example presentation includes five groups of unrelated words that
you can use with students: http://bit.ly/hackingcreativity30
Procedure:
• Put your students into small groups or pairs and and show them the
first group of words.
• Ask them to work together and create a text that includes all of the
words. Give them a time limit.
• Once they have finished get the groups to share their texts. (You
could ask them to listen and choose the one they like most.)
• Show the students the next group of words and ask them to repeat
the process.
• Continue until you have used all the groups of words.
Optional:
• Now ask your students to exchange their texts with another group.
• Ask the groups to look at the texts and mark any place where they
think the text needs to be corrected.
• Next get the students to return the texts to the original group and give
them some time to correct their texts.
• Ask each group to share what they think is their most creative text.
• Ask the students to choose one of the texts and develop it into a
complete story.
94
TOOLS FOR CREATING

This chapter of the book contains a collection of different tools you can use to
get your students activating their creative skills to produce various types of
media from video and text to animation and coded games and apps.
Many of these apps enable students to share their creations through social
media and interact with other creators around the world.
95
WRITING TOOLS
Commaful is a great tool for combining images with text and converting them
into a dynamic slide show.
There is a large collection of images and gifs in the Commaful library and you
can easily select where you overlay the text on the images. This tool is great
for illustrating short poems or very short stories, such as three line stories.
https://commaful.com/
HaikuJam is a free app for collaboratively creating short poems. Just write a
line and then it is passed to someone else somewhere in the world and they
add the next line and so it continues.
This is a great way to give students daily creative writing practice in English.
The app is only available for the Android platform.  
http://www.haikujam.com/
96
FoldPass is a tool for creatine and publishing haiku with friends. It enables
you to create the first line of the haiku and then pass it to a friend to add the
next line and so on.
Once the haiku is complete an image can be added and then the haikus can
be shared through social media. This is a really nice creative activity to do with
students. The app is only available for iOS devices. 
http://www.foldpass.com/
Wattpad is a platform for finding, writing and publishing stories. With over 80
million readers, this is a great place to find new fiction for students or to give
them a space to publish their own stories and writing. The platform is free and
simple to use and the results look professional.
There is even the possibility of charging for their published work and some
screen writers have been discovered through the platform. The app works in
the browser or on mobile devices.  
https://www.wattpad.com/
97
Night Zookeeper is a platform aimed at younger kids (6 +) and it supplies

creative prompts and a space to develop their writing and creative skills.
The platform includes a number of lessons that teachers can work through
with their students or students can work alone on the computer. 
https://www.nightzookeeper.com/
98
VIDEO & IMAGES
TikTok is a hugely popular app at the moment. It enables people to create,

edit and share short creative videos.
If students don’t already have the app they can download it for free and then
find some videos they like and share them with other students in the
classroom. The app is available on Android and iOS. 
https://www.tiktok.com/en/
Dubsmash is great for younger students (13+) who like movement and
dance. It enables students to find music and then video themselves dancing
to the music.
The videos can then be shared. There are lots of videos they can watch to get
inspiration. You could get students to work as a group to find a video they like
and then learn together how to imitate it.  
https://dubsmash.com
99
Instagram is one of the most popular apps available. It allows users to take,
edit and share images and short video clips. The app has a range of different
filters and editing features which can make images look much more
professional. Users can follow each other. and comment on images.
This is a great tool for getting students to collect the images you ask them to
make for class (They can have multiple accounts so they don’t have to use
their personal one for the work you do in the classroom). It’s also a great app
for finding creative inspiration, so get students to do searches on creativity
related hashtags.  
https://www.instagram.com/
Hipstamatic is an alternative to Instagram and has a range of retro style filters

that give the images more of an old fashioned feel.
If you want students to create images for stories that have a bit more
atmosphere, then this might be a nice app to use. It’s only available for iOS. 
http://hipstamatic.com/cinamatic/
100
SKETCHING AND DOODLING
Sketchbook is a free app for sketching. It’s very easy to use and has an
impressive range of features.
This is a great for doodling or sketching on phones, tablets or computers.

This app works on most devices and platforms.  
https://www.sketchbook.com/
Tayasui is a free sketching tool that students can use to create images,
doodles and illustrations.
It’s simple to use and has a wide range of free features. There are versions for
both iOS and Android as well as computers.
https://www.tayasui.com/sketches/
101
CODING & ANIMATION

Tynker is a great place to find coding activities and tutorials for kids and
younger adults. There’s a great range of project types and they have teacher
guidance included.
There are also courses available through the platform. Some of the content is
paid for, but a lot is free and there are free packages for schools, so this is a
great way to get students started exercising their creativity through making a
range of digital artefacts.  
https://www.tynker.com/
Wick editor is a simple free tool for creating interactive animation. There are
lots of short tutorials on the site to help students get started as well as some
simple example projects.
The tool works in the browser so it’s simple to get students started. This is a
great tool for animating sentences or new words as students learn them.  
https://www.wickeditor.com/#/
102
MUSIC
Auxy is a great tool for creating background music. It’s very simple to use and
there are lots of tutorials available on YouTube that show students how to use
it.
You don’t need to have any musical training to create something using this
simple tool. Students can use it to create their own background music for
projects such as videos, live storytelling, podcasts or plays. The app is only
available on iOS.  
https://auxy.co/
Coffitivity is a simple app to create ambient background noise. The app

supplies ‘coffee shop’ background noise from a range of different contexts.
This is useful in the classroom if you have students who are shy about
speaking and don’t want to break the silence or if you need to add
atmosphere for a role play or performance. The app makers also claim it
helps with concentration.  
https://coffitivity.com/
103
INSPIRATION
TED Creativity is great if you want to get more depth on the ideas behind
creativity and why it’s important.
The site has a wide collection of TED Talks all of which deal with different
aspects of creativity.  
https://www.ted.com/search?q=Creativity
Brainsparker is an app that prompts creativity through the use of simple

cards.
Each day students receive some form of creativity prompt or project. This is a
great tool for getting students (and teachers) to exercise their creativity each
day.  
https://brainsparker.com/
104
ABOUT THE Nik Peachey is a freelance teacher trainer, writer, conference

speaker and learning technology consultant.
AUTHOR
He has been involved in education since 1990 and has lived and
worked all over the world.
He is a two time British Council Innovations Award Winner and

the Co - Founder of PeacheyPublications Ltd
He has worked with a wide range of educational companies,

publishers and institutions including Macmillan, CUP, OUP, British
Council, International House, Bell Educational Services,
University of Westminster, The Open University, The BBC, Google
Creative Labs, Kings College Online, EtonX and many more.
Nik is the editor of the free ‘Learning Technology and ELT

Newsletter’ at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/
Nik is also a keen blogger and content curator. You can find his
blog at: https://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/ and his curation sites
at: http://www.scoop.it/t/tools-for-learners and
http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology
You can contact Nik at: Nik.Peachey@PeacheyPublications.com
cv

Hacking Creativity

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Hacking Creativity

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hacking Creativity

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

jmagoto@uoregon.

edu 03 Jan 2020

Teaching Techniques, Exercises and

For my daughters Molly and Isabella -

This book is an independent publication and has been created in

If you have downloaded this book without permission or paying,

All images remain the property of the creator.

Nik Peachey - Co-Founder PeacheyPublications Ltd

PeacheyPublications is registered as limited company: 11586696

Creativity has become something of a buzzword in education

But what is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we all have it

In this book I won’t be attempting to answer any of those

• The first part looks at a range of teaching techniques that you

• The second part is a collection of 30 structured activities.

• The third part is a collection of digital tools and applications

1. Complete the Plot 31

17. Six Degrees of Separation 65

Part 3 Tools for Creating! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 95

About the Author 105

TECHNIQUES & EXERCISES

Expressing personal creativity in the classroom is a risky undertaking for your

• Be encouraging and don’t dismiss any ideas or suggestions. Give

• Try to keep things light in the classroom. Be accepting of students sense of

Remember: Constructive criticism can be good, but focussing on helping

Effective brainstorming is dependent on the ability to suspend

Developing students’ abilities to brainstorm can take time and training.

When brainstorming as a class be sure to welcome any ideas and all

• Topic vocabulary - Ask students to brainstorm words based around

• The colour of words - Ask students to brainstorm words connected

• Different ways - Ask students to brainstorm multiple ways of doing

• Fixing the world - Ask students to brainstorm ways of solving one of

• Pros and cons - Ask students to brainstorm as many arguments as

Many people believe that in order for something to be creative it has to

This process of combining ideas is something that we can encourage

Again it’s important not to be dismissive or judgemental about the ideas

• Portmanteau words - When you review vocabulary, get students to

• Characters - Ask students to combine two different characters from

• Combining sentences - Ask students to combine two unrelated

Note: You can use: https://randomwordgenerator.com/sentence.php to

GROUPING AND CONNECTING

• Grouping words - Give students a groups of 20-30 words they have

• Linking to people - Ask students to imagine a link or association

• News events - Ask students to imagine the connections between any

• Book relations - Ask students to imagine a connection between

• Image connections - Give students any 2 or more images and ask

• Sentence connections - Give students two unrelated sentences and

Example: What’s the connections between “I want more detailed

• Build a sentence - Ask the students to build representations of

• Build a work of art - Ask them to recreate famous people or works of

• Collage yourself - Ask students to make a collage of their own

MUSIC AND SOUND

Most of the listening we encourage students to do in the language

• Visualising music - Ask students to listen to a piece of music with

• Background - Have music on in the background while students work.

• Music research - Ask students to find a piece of music from a

• Musical associations - Ask students to brainstorm words they

• Musical doodles - Ask students to listen to a piece of music. Give

• Musical discussion - Use music as the basis for discussion. This

• A film - Ask students to visualise the last film they saw.  