Purpose:
To write effective description
To use reading as a tool for conversation
To develop and practise a simple question/answer schemata

Materials:
30 - 40 used picture postcards and as many blank slips of postcard-sized pieces of paper

Levels:
Lower intermediate to advances
20-30 students

        Everyone has their own collection of postcards from friends, family abroad, and former students. Each postcard is inherently interesting because it shows a picture and tells a story.

        This activity is a lively and exciting way to use your postcards as a valuable classroom resource, perhaps within a unit on geography, or world cultures. It is simple to organize and largely student-generated. The use of postcards can promote genuinely communicative exchanges between students of any age and in classes of almost any size. Furthermore, it is even environmentally sound because it promotes recycling as well as discovery.

        Pedagogically, one purpose of this activity is to help students create effective descriptive writing, and to respond to the writing of other students in an authentic, communicative way. Secondly, the writing forms a basis for conversation exchanges, and through these exchanges, students develop and practise a simple question and answer schemata. I have successfully used this activity in classes of 20 to 30 students from lower intermediate to advanced English ability.

Procedure:

1. Walk among your students with a handful of postcards and ask them to each choose one and place it face down on the desk. Explain to the students that you would like them to imagine that they have just visited the place on the postcard. Pass out the postcard-sized slips of paper.
   
   
2. Tell the students to each write a postcard to a friend about their vacations. The students should refer to their picture postcards and describe the scene but avoid mentioning any place names. They are also encouraged to read the back of their postcards and use any of that information as well.
   
   
3. Explain to them that after they have finished writing, another student is going to try to guess where they spent their holidays. Allow the students about 20 minutes to write down their descriptions. Then ask them to sign their postcard-sized papers with their real names.
   
   
4. Collect all the picture postcards and all the descriptions on the postcard-sized slips of paper. Line all the postcards up in the chalkrail below the blackboard in the front of the classroom. Alternately, lay them all out together on the teacher's desk, picture side up.
   
   
5. Wander among the students' desks again, this time with the descriptions on the slips of paper, and ask each student to choose one. They should carefully read the description two or three times.
   
   
6. Invite the students to come to the front of the classroom to try to match their postcard-sized descriptions with the right picture postcards. When they think they have matched them correctly, they are to check with the postcard writer if they have made the right choice. This part of the activity continues until everyone has a matched set and is usually accompanied by shouts and laughter.
   
   
7. For the next part of the activity, about 10 - 15 minutes, students keep their matched sets together. Ask each student to write down 5 questions they would like to ask someone else about their trip. After the students have written down their questions, find them partners, and get them to exchange picture postcards.
   
   
8. Have each student ask his or her partner about the picture postcard, referring to the 5 questions if necessary, or in the case of the student answering, to the postcard description. The first student asks the second about his or her trip, then the two students switch parts. This activity is repeated 3 times, each time with a new partner, in order to provide enough repetition for students to remember their questions and their answers without reading them. From my experience, the activity still retains its interest because there is a variation in it with each change of partners.
   
   
9. In a final variation, form the students into new pairs "to make phonecalls" telling their friends about their recent trip. In this question and answer activity, the students turn their backs on each other so they cannot see one another which is exactly what happens in a real telephone conversation. The students have to pay more attention to grammatical form and to the volume of their voices in order to communicate effectively. Once again, this activity should be repeated several times.
   
   
10. One of the good things about "All Around A Postcard" is that it can also lead to many other worthwhile classroom activities. Among these are that students bring in their own postcards and present these to one another in small groups. These cards are exchanged and their new owners attempt to repeat what they have just heard about the postcards. Afterward, the postcard owners can tell them how well they did and correct their mistakes. Then each member of the group goes to a new group with someone else's postcard and attempts to explain what it is about.
    
    
11. "All Around A Postcard" can also be used to introduce compare/contrast writing because the students have pictures to compare with one another. Students can also write postcards assuming different roles, altering their personalities, ages, and origins.
    
    

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