Level: Upper intermediate / Advanced
Location: Classroom or connected classroom
Activity: Writing
Language: Transitive & intransitive verbs, adjecties, adverbs

Here's a nice little exercise in word building and learners also get to have fun writing and reading their own and fellow learners' poems. Tell learners to open their note books and to draw 6 columns down their page. Then either write the graph below on the board and tell your learners to copy it or dictate it to your learners:

1 Object (concrete noun)	2 Noun (Abstract noun)	3 Transitive Verb (takes an object)	4 Intransitive Verb (takes no object)	5 Adjective	6 Adverb	7 Exclamation of surprise

When they have the graph write Samorost on the board and brainstorm language from Samorost into the columns. For Example:

1 Object (concrete noun)	2 Noun (Abstract noun)	3 Transitive Verb (takes an object)	4 Intransitive Verb (takes no object)	5 Adjective	6 Adverb	7 Exclamation of surprise
Alien Planet dog	Kidnapping adventure rescue	love rescue push	travel fall land	scary fast big	slowly quickly quietly	Oh no Yikes Gosh

Try and fill the columns with at least 5 words each. Learners have fun saying the last column. You could always ask your learners for their own rude words (not too rude) and you can think of parallel ones in English. Some of my learners quite liked my dad's use of 'sugar' as an expletive.


Then either Hand out a copy of the following formula (cut and paste it into a word processing document and print it out) or show your learners this on a computer screen. I've done it the later way both as an open display and as a relay dictation and both were quite fun. Here's the formula:

The 5 1 6 3S The 1.
5, 5 1S 6 3 a/an 5, 5 1.
2 is a/an 5 1.
7, 2!
1S 4!
The 1 4S like a/an 5 1.
1S 4 like 5 1S.
Why does the 1 4?
4 6 like a/an 5 1.
2, 2, and 2.
Where is the 5 1?
All 1S 3 5, 5 1S.
Never 3 a/an 1.

Learners then copy the formula substituting a word from the relevant column in its place. When they have finished they can read them to a partner and decide which is the best. Finally, vote on the three best Samorost poems in the class.