Not all writing activities need to be essays or articles. In fact, students should get into the habit of writing regularly — if not every day, then at least once a week during an English lesson. This helps them get used to producing texts under time pressure and encourages them to share small pieces of their own lives with classmates. In turn, it helps the group get to know each other a little better.
For that reason, I’m always racking my brains for fresh ideas to write about, and that’s how this short activity was born.
In this post, I’ll be getting my B2.1 students to share a childhood anecdote with the class as a closure activity for Unit 3A of English File. By this point, we will have worked on the past simple, used to and the past continuous, as well as vocabulary related to stages of life and personality traits (already covered in previous units). I plan to dedicate around 60 minutes to the whole activity.
HOW TO USE
Think about one of your own childhood anecdotes to share with your students — it doesn’t have to be traumatic; a funny one works beautifully 😂😂😂.
Get AI to generate an image that represents the exact moment you want to talk about.
Show your students this “frozen moment” and ask them to guess what happened. Elicit ideas, enjoy the wild theories, and then reveal the real story by showing them the text. You can see my example below.
Instructions for the writing task
Write a short anecdote (max. 100 words) about something you remember from your childhood. Your text must include:
• one past simple verb
• one past continuous verb
• one structure with used to or didn’t use to
• one adjective describing a personal trait (e.g. shy, noisy, greedy, stubborn, sociable, clumsy…)
• Try to make it funny, surprising or memorable.
Set-up
Stick contributions on the classroom wall.
Students walk around and read the anonymous anecdotes on the wall.
Each student chooses one that they find funny, shocking or relatable.
Detectives’ Work
In pairs or small groups, they try to guess:
- Who in the class might have written it
- What clues gave them that idea
- What kind of child do you think this person used to be?
- Do you think they’re still like that now?
- Which adjectives from the EF list fit them? (shy, noisy, clever, sociable…)
- Do they sound similar to anyone in the reading?
Sit & Chat Round
Students then mingle and ask careful yes/no questions to try to discover the author:
- Did you use to be sociable?
- Were you greedy/shy/noisy… as a child?
- Did this habit/trait continue when you became a teenager?
- Do you still do this today? or Are you still like this today?
Mini-reveal
The writer reveals themselves and adds one more sentence:
- “Now I’m very different.”
or - “Honestly, I’m still the same.”