TASK 1: TASKS AND

ACTIVITIES FOR
USE WITH A NOVEL
SUBJECT: Teaching English Through Literature
TUTOR: Svitlana Kovalyk
STUDENT: Adolfo Javier Limon Capaceta
TASK 1: TASKS AND ACTIVITIES FOR USE WITH A NOVEL
PRE-READING ACTIVITIES
1. Helping students with cultural background. Activity:
Making a research about the times when that book was written. Analysing the general
ideas or mindset of that epoch may allow students to understand better a book or set
better the context.
2. Stimulating student interest in the story. Activity:
If there is a movie I would choose segments of the story in order to catch their attention.
Also, if the author’s life was particularly interesting, I would ask them for a research
about the author.
3. Pre-teaching vocabulary. Activity:
I would pick several words related to the genre or the context of the story. For example,
if the story is about travelling, cities or different types of landscapes would be
mentioned.

WHILE-READING ACTIVITIES
1. Helping students to understand the plot. Activity:
Presentations activities. Each student has a deadline for each chapter. Once they finish
the chapter, they have to present the plot or summarise it orally. Of course, this
depends on the group’s level of proficiency.
If the level was lower, a summary of 100 would help them to order the sequence of the
book.
2. Helping students to understand the characters. Activity:
If they all are reading the same book, I would play charades with them. The format
would be “Am I grumpy?”, “Am Intelligent”, “Am Introvert”, and similar questions.
In case they were reading a different book, I would ask them to explain characters in
the oral presentation or introduce them if new characters appear.
3. Helping students with difficult vocabulary. Activity:
Firstly, I would encourage them to find the word by context. I consider that this is a very
useful way to think critically and, actually, is a perfect scenario to develop or apply it. If
they were still having problems a personal glossary may work, but I think this is not a
good idea whatsoever, it may make feel students boring or frustrated.
4. Helping students with style and language. Activity:
Students have to be exposed to similar kind of texts before reading the book
(fragments, words, epoch’s mindset). With this, students will be acquainted with the
style or language that the book uses.
POST-READING ACTIVITIES
1. Helping students to make interpretations of the text. Activity:
In this situation, debates are very helpful tools for teacher and students as well.
Debates instil into students critical thinking if the moderator makes the appropriate
questions.
2. Understanding narrative point of view. Activity:
A diary would be an interesting activity. They could follow the sequence as if they were
any character of the story.
3. Follow-up writing activities. Activity:
I would ask them to write alternative situations of different parts of the story. Also, a
personal essay would be interesting by internalising the content of the book and how
does it relate to their lives or modern life.
4. Follow-up fluency practice. Activity:
An activity that I consider would help is a theatre piece adaptation. With this, students
can apply several real-life speaking features like intonation, emphasising words or
stress word.