[mar espinoza]

[QUOTE]little sage[/quote]
Hi, a question here.

Does anyone know a good activity for the first day of university age, very basic level composition class? I want to get a writing sample from the students to gauge their skill, but I don't want to be too boring and obvious.

What springs immediately to mind is "Write a few sentences to introduce yourself" or the very cliche "What I did on summer vacation". Can anyone either spruce up these themes or advise me on a more exciting activity?

Thanks in advance.

Karen


* Well, besides being an Elementary school english teacher, I'm still studying the B.A in ELT.
I remember that in my methodology class, the first day our teacher asked us to take out a sheet of paper. On that piece of paper we had to write very simple things such as:
- name
- hobbies
- what would you like to have in this course that you did not have in the previous one (if any).
- what are your expectations about the course.

If they are in a very basic level, they are still capable of answering these questions; However, they might need you to help them with it. Also, you can write on the board a list of the vocabulary that may be used in order to help them a little bit more.
Hope you find this useful!

cheers!