What would you do with this ticket in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context it is used in. Post your ideas in the comments below.
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A ticket
May 4, 2011
Collaborative idea generation for ELT
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30 tasks for teacher trainers to help them learn to reflect on their teaching, as well as build up an online community.
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(Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas 
Comments on: "A ticket" (17)
Okay, I’ll do the obvious one to get it out of the way, and leave everyone the space to be more creative!
You could do a role play in a travel class, with one student as the ticket seller and one as the customer. Lots of scope here for pre and post activities that I don’t think I need to explain here.
I know, it’s obvious, but someone had to!
Expanding on James’ idea above, you could also use it in more advanced classes by doing a roleplay where students either have to check their travel details, or complain about being sold the wrong tickets. The seller and the customer would have a copy of the ticket with the travel details, but with some of the details changed on the seller’s copy. Students then have to go through the details, check them, and find out which ones are different. It could also be used for practising question tags, eg.:
‘You’re going to Peterborough, aren’t you?’ ‘No, I’m going to York.’
Hi Sandy, and congrats, by the way.
I’d write a list of the following words and ask students in pairs to group them according to main vowel sound:
ticket, nil, April, nine, class, train, castle, type, single, price.
You could do something with the numbers on the ticket. For low level learners they could categorise the numbers, Practice saying them, find other example of same categories in other text types
It’s late… which must account for the more philosophical spin. The journey here is from Newcastle to York and it made me think about the possibilities contained within a ticket.
How about using it to start a discussion… what can a ticket do for you? what doors can it open? what can you get tickets for? what is the best day/night you’ve had after purchasing a ticket? if you could have any kind of ticket to any kind of event/place what ticket would you get?
Or some sort of imaginative writing task – in groups learners create a ticket of some kind – for any kind of transport, to a place, a concert etc… they then swop their tickets and the next group has to write a dialogue or story of what happened when that ticket was used.
The stories could be as normal as a trip to the zoo or a bus journey down-town or as imaginative as the story of a ticket to a fantasy world.
Here is Anna’s excellent lesson plan, inspired in part by this post: http://annarose03.typepad.com/blog/2011/05/usingticketsanunpluggedapproach.html
Hi, arriving late, and was really hoping nobody would have covered this old chestnut 🙂
You could tell the students that this ticket is the only clue they have to solving a mystery. They have to look at it and extrapolate as much information as possible – who bought the ticket, where were they going, when, how much did they pay for it, was it single or return and anything else they can find. You could add a competitive element by rewarding the students who get the most information within a time limit.
Having milked it for as much information as possible students work in pairs/groups to map out the story behind the ticket. They then tell their stories and the class vote on a) the most outlandish b) the most probable c) the most romantic (or whatever seems appropriate).
If you think the class won’t be offended/grossed out, you could say that the ticket was found on a corpse, or in the pocket of someone suffering from amnesia? Or is that just taking it too far 😉
Great blog, Sandy! Keep it coming!
Hi Sandy
I’ve only just stumbled across this blog but already love it.
You could encourage learners to make a song or poem either about the journey or with the information on the ticket.
Hi Leanne,
Thanks for joining in! Great suggestion 🙂
Sandy
Hi Sandy…
Finally got around to commenting on this fab blog!
To introduce one of the ideas that people have given already (role plays, discussions, etc…), I’d show the ticket but without the “Information text”(From, To, Valid Until, Price, etc) and have those words into slips – or even no slips if a more advanced group, or you want a more challenging activity.
Have the students guess/work out which name goes with each information.
Loved it!
Some great ideas here! Love the ‘Murder Mystery Ceri!
I think I’d use it as a launch for a group project/edquest planning a weekend in either Newcastle or York – they could plan the journey, accommodation, an itinerary; research places to visit etc. and then each group could post their findings as a ‘brochure’ entry on a wiki.
Use flickriver.com to do a quick image search for both Newcastle and York and then learners describe and/or compare two (or more). I’m assuming one or more class PCs here, the number of which would determine whether the pictures were the stimulus for the whole class, or whether different groups of learners could choose different pictures.
http://flickriver.com/search/newcastle/
http://flickriver.com/search/york/
Wow, lots of interesting ideas!
Picking up Ceri’s (brilliant) proposal, I’d have them working in larger groups guessing information about the commuter by making hypothesis, fostering the use of modals or conditionals. You can write some assertions on the blackboard (in case you still keep one) and they’ll have to support or refute them using the information provided on the ticket:
The passenger was going to work.
“If the passenger had bought the ticket to go to the office s/he would have got it earlier.”
“The passenger must be getting back home, because it’s a single ticket.”
Or:
She/He lives in York.
“Yes, she/he must live in York.”
“Well, s/he might be visiting a relative.”
After discussion, conclusions are taken down and shown for all to see. As a follow up activity, they can use them to individually write a short narrative about the mysterious passenger’s journey,
Or you can also provide some places of interest in York so that students use google maps to find York railway station and give directions to the proposed spots.
Great blog!
errata: hypotheses, rather than hypothesis 😛
[…] the prompt I want to take down a dogme road is this one about using a ticket. I was also interested to see Anna’s interpretation, so may take some ideas from her post as […]
[…] Filed under Day by Day in the Classroom, The Visual Corner, Visualising Vocabulary I was inspired by Magpie Moments “Using Tickets – an Unplugged Approach” lesson to try and adapt this lesson using authentic tickets. The idea for using tickets came from Sandy Millin’s very inspiring (Almost) Infinite ELT ideas blog. […]
Blank out the information and give each ss a copy of the ticket. Tell them it can be a ticket to anything or anywhere they want in the world–a destination, a concert of some sort, the moon…
Or do the above in groups, have them brainstorm ideas first of what it could be a ticket for. Then quick plenary sharing said ideas. Then each group choose their favourite idea and explain to the other groups why that is their favourite. Then have them make up a mini-drama/role play based around what their ticket is to. This could then written up as a story for homework, possibly… shared on a website so everyone could look at all the stories…