Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners

6.6 My mum’s mobile phone
Level
*
Language focus
Text messages, the alphabet, numbers, questions
Skills focus
Writing: punctuation
Thinking focus
Analysing and discovering
Teaching approach
Promote creativity – accept errors
Interaction
Pairwork
Preparation
Write the example text message on the board. See Box 116.
Procedure
1 Some children will be familiar with text messaging and the short cuts that
mobile phone users often use. For the others, tell them that, to save money,
people shorten their text messages and use symbols instead of whole words.
2 Refer the class to the example text message on the board. Ask them to
solve the puzzle and read out the text message. Write the example out in
full. See Box 116.
3 Write another message on the board. See the text messages puzzles in
Box 116.
4 Ask the children, in pairs, to solve the puzzle of this text message. Ask
them to write the message out in full.