Theatre of the Absurd: Teaching With Drama

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use a Theatre of the Absurd scene so that students can explore the Absurdist movement, comprehend when and how to use inverted questions, engage in textual analysis, and show their understanding through creating their own dialogues.

Image source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beckett-s-waiting-for-godot-was-ugly-jet-of-marsh-gas-that-enraged-censors-5cr6tth6z

I do a whole comedy unit with high intermediate learners (the third or fourth year of them taking language classes) where we talk about comedy is and what forms it can take (stand-up, comics, cartoons, improv, sit-coms, mime, etc.) One of my favorite sections is to examine the Theatre of the Absurd, though this activity can be done with any other unit or as a quick one-off lesson! The Theatre of the Absurd movement is more of a “tragi-comedy”, as the humor comes from the lack of meaning the universe has to offer us (HILARIOUS!). But seriously, so much of humor is absurd, and there is a lot of word play to explore as well. I’m going to be using a French text as an example of how I teach this lesson, but the most famous Theatre of the Absurd play is “Waiting for Godot” and I’m sure you can adapt this lesson to any language!

I don’t normally teach using scripted plays, but I make an exception here, because it ultimately ends up with students creating their own! As for the activities I describe, the script I’m referring to is from En Direct 1, which was published in 1993. These textbooks are no longer in print, so I feel comfortable sharing it below. (Nelson Publishing, if I’m wrong, I’m happy to take it down!)

This text was originally a play written by Roland Dubillard in 1953 which aimed to demonstrate the tenets of the Theatre of the Absurd movement: life is meaningless and the universe is inexplicable. Then, the En Direct 1 textbook adapted an excerpt for French language learners. In comparing the text to the original, I’d say that I would much rather use the adapted text with my students, however some of you may have much more advanced learners in your class who would appreciate the original (and you could watch the video of French actors performing it). The adapted text is shorter, has simpler vocabulary, the subjunctive is removed, and any reference to smoking and alcohol are removed. Most importantly, all the questions were put in the inverted form in order to highlight that particular grammatical feature, such as transforming the original’s simple “Pourquoi?” into “Pourquoi ne supportez-vous pas la pluie?”. However, in my opinion, Dubillard’s original message remains within the modified text. For me, this is also an opportunity to practice some teacher transperancy and discuss with students why I make the choices that I do. I would be interested in their thoughts on authentic texts versus adapted texts and/or their thoughts on censoring mentions of smoking and drinking.

Potential learning objectives:

• Recognizing the inverted questioning technique (how it is constructed and when it is used)

• Listening comprehension (this can be paired with a fill-in-the-blanks activity where students listen for the questions and how they are constructed)

• Textual analysis through the genre of the Theatre of the Absurd

• Cultural competence through understanding the French historical context of the Absurdist movement

• Practicing speaking through creating an absurdist mini-scene

RESOURCE: Theatre of the Absurd Worksheet for students in .docx

RESOURCE: Theatre of the Absurd Worksheet for students in .pdf

RESOURCE: Adapted script of La Pluie (PDF)

Image source: http://50watts.com/The-Children-s-Theater-of-the-Absurd

PART I: Depending on the level of my students, I like to introduce the Theatre of the Absurd with a video in either French or English (or both!). I’ve found two videos that I recommend that are under 3 minutes: The best French video I’ve found is by Pierre Teuler and the best English video is by the BBC. Through watching the videos, we make a list of characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd or the Absurdist movement (which we’ll come back to in Part III). I also recommend this post if you want to have stronger grounding in the Theatre of the Absurd movement yourself for context. You can also watch these videos for more information:

• TedEd video “Why should you read ‘Waiting for Godot’?” by Iseult Gillespie (5:03)

• CrashCourse video “Beckett, Ionesco, and the Theater of the Absurd: Crash Course Theater #45”

• Un plume fragile video “Mouvement littéraire : Le théâtre de l'absurde - résumé et explication”

PART II: Listen to the text. The original cassette tape is looooong gone, but this part is important since plays are meant to be performed!  You could get a fellow French teacher to record a version with you to play or perhaps you could ask some strong students to read it aloud (after giving them the script ahead of time to look it over). The worksheet I have has students filling in the blanks with the inverted questions that they hear. I have a bank of the answers that students can use, but for stronger students you can remove the bank. As we go through, I tend to pause to clarify for understand (as much as you can truly understand Theatre of the Absurd!). You can also show a video of the original text (or a short clip from it) being performed once you’re done. Although students might not understand it all, there is something special about seeing how actors are able to imbue a play about meaninglessness with so much meaning and physicality!

PART III: Go back to the list of characteristics. How does this text represent the Absurdist movement? In the worksheet I made, I left space around the script for students to annotate on the actual script. Below are some examples of what I’ve pulled from the text, but your answers may be completely different!

• Believed life is meaningless and the universe is inexplicable = Person Two is unable to find an answer as to why Person One does not support the rain, and we are unable to understand what that even matters in the first place

• Wanted to represent a more dream-like environment of confusion and ambiguity, unlike most plays which try to represent reality on stage = Person One begins by stating “Je ne supporte pas la pluie”. This is a bewildering statement to both Person Two and the audience, and as the scene continues to confound us, we must eventually accept that understanding will always be an impossibility

• Wanted the audience to distrust language as a communication tool, as they believed that language was incapable of truly expressing the human condition = the ambiguity of language is highlighted through the use of the verb “supporter”, which like in English, can have a variety of meanings, such as to accept, to take responsibility for, to tolerate, or to root for

• Draws attention to the banality of every-day conversation = the words spoken in the dialogue are conversational and colloquial, such as the use of “Eh bien… je suppose que…” and “Hou!”

• Use of questions to represent the struggle humans have to understand an inexplicable reality = Person Two uses questions to attempt to clarify why Person One does not support various things associated with the rain. This is also how ideas are connected and flow: despite each question eliciting another illogical tangent, the questions are able to move the dialogue forward.

Image source: http://50watts.com/The-Children-s-Theater-of-the-Absurd

PART IV: Students pair-off and write their own absurdist dialogue. In the first column they have the script, in the second part they annotate how this conforms to the tenets of the Theatre of the Absurd, using La Pluie as a model. This is also an opportunity to focus on creating inverted questions! For students that might need inspiration to get started on their scenes, you could have a hat with pieces of paper with a bunch of weather phenomena (ex. the rain, the snow, a rainbow) or another theme (ex. normal activities or common objects) to give students inspiration.

PART V: Have an ‘absurdity-off’!!! A pair of students perform their absurd dialogue for another pair. Between the two groups, they decide which of the two texts were more absurd (honor system). Continue with the winners going up against a new pair (while the pair that was eliminated gets a chance to watch other pairs perform). After there are only two groups left, they perform for the class as a whole and the class votes on the ‘Most Absurd’ dialogue. (NOTE: If you have group that is strong with improv and seems to grasp the concept easily, you can skip Part IV, or at least make it less scripted, having them sketch out their basic idea rather than write out an entire script).

POTENTIAL CONTINUATION/FORMATIVE FEEDBACK: Students individually rewrite the script they made with their partner, paying attention to grammar and vocabulary (which likely has some errors since they quickly wrote it in class). However, the catch is that while they can keep the answers, they have to make completely new questions! (Or the opposite: they need to make completely new answers to the original questions! Or they exchange their scripts with another group and need to do this!) Students then hand it in for the teacher to give feedback on inverted question formation. I also usually start the next day with a warm-up game that involves absurd inverted questions.

 UPDATE: I’ve adapted this lesson for a Drama Grammar lesson template, which you can check out here.

How do you use different types of drama in your classroom? Have you ever explored the Theatre of the Absurd with students? Share in the comments!

Listening Project

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to encourage students to explore a variety of listening sources, create a database of reviews, and/or have students reflect metacognitively on their listening skills.

Image source: https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smarterliving/be-a-better-listener

Feel free to scroll to the bottom to get right to downloading this resource available in English or English/French.

There are plenty of reasons why giving students free choice in their reading is best for having them (gasp) actually enjoy reading! There are also some great ideas out there for building up reading programs that make students love reading again (my interview with Agent Kari Pitstick about reaching reluctant readers was very inspiring in this regard!) However, it got me thinking… we do a lot to encourage students to explore written resources for pleasure, why aren’t we doing the same for listening resources?

When looking at the learning outcomes for my second language courses, I found that students should be able to ‘independently locate, explore and think critically about a wide variety of texts’ and ‘recognize different purposes, degrees of formality, and cultural points of view in these texts’.  Often, we view ‘texts’ as being only written, but they can be listened to as well!  Therefore, this project is designed to encourage students to explore and evaluate a variety of listening resources.  Additionally, it is designed to dovetail with the research component of their Genius Hour projects. However, if you aren’t doing a Genius Hour project, I also have a version where they explore a topic of interest to them (i.e., sports, celebrities, fairy tales, cars, video games, etc.) 

After listening to Kari, I have to admit I’m a convert for not making students do a lot of onerous work around what they are reading (or in this case, listening to). HOWEVER, this project is designed more around metacognition and sharing, rather than deep analysis of the actual text.

Part one of the assignment is a Listening Resource Portfolio that can be shared with other classes.  The idea is that, as a department or group of classes, you can build up a list of resources on a variety of subjects with which students can use to practice their listening skills.  So, if you are doing some free listening practice and students say “but I don’t know what I want to listen to” you can point them to the resource collection, and they can browse for a topic or type of resource that interests them. This would be perfect for building up a giant google slide deck or other similar online resource that students could access at home!

I’ve created a chart of possibilities for students to choose from for exploring resources to encourage them to go outside of their confort zones (below - English on the right, French on the left). In the project I have students choose from these categories, and I also think it’s a great way to demonstrate the global nature of language!

If all you’re looking to do is get students to gather resources to share, then you can stop here! The evaluation for part one is pass/fail: did the student fulfill the criteria or not?

Part two of the assignment is a Personal Reflection, which I tell my students will not be shared. It is designed so that students can demonstrate their ability to reflect metacognitively (thinking about their thinking) about their listening experiences. There is a part for reflecting on the content itself (in a general way) and a part for reflecting on their listening skills. Because I speak the same L1 as my students, I have them do this part in our shared language of English because I want to emphasize that it’s about the thinking that they are expressing, not about language proficiency. However, I understand that not everyone follows this line of thinking, or shares the same languages as their students.

I think it’s important to note that being a good listener is not an innate skill. Like anything else, it needs to be explained and practiced. I like to use the six strategies of inferencing, elaboration, self-monitoring, summarization, self-evaluation, and toleration of uncertainty. You can download a handout developed by pbworks based on research by Young (1997) here that I like to use.

RESOURCE: Listening Project (in English with English examples, can be adapted to other languages, stands alone as a project)

RESOURCE: Listening Project (in English with English examples, can be adapted to other languages, has a connection to a genius hour project)

RESOURCE: Listening Project (instructions in English for French students, examples in French, stands alone as a project)

RESOURCE: Listening Project (instructions in English for French students, examples in French, has a connection to a genius hour project)

RESOURCE: Listening Project Evaluation (in English/French)

RESOURCE: Listening Project Evaluation (English only)

How do you engage students in listening? Feel free to share in the comments!

4/3/2 Fluency Technique

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help your students become more confident and fluent speakers when talking about a chosen topic using the 4/3/2 technique.

What is the 4/3/2 technique?

 Dr. Paul Nation makes the point that “At every level of language proficiency, learners should try to be fluent with what they already know.” Therefore, he created an activity that helps students focus on meaning, speed, and volume with a familiar text. This is an activity I use with students to help increase confidence and fluency, and also encourage solid reading comprehension when it’s paired with a text.  

How does it work?

• Step One: Students become ‘experts’ in a particular topic. This can mean they are about to talk about the subject of their project, or what book they are reading, or the main idea of a small article they read. A resource I recommend for this type of activity are magazines by Rubicon Publishing. They have sets in French and English with ‘Top 10 [blank]’: Top ten spies, top ten sports showdowns, top ten outrageous hoaxes, etc. I had access to class sets of 30, so the whole class would read on the same topic. I would assign 3 students to read each article together, then they would be the ‘experts’ in their entry and would find someone not in their group to talk to for the next steps.

• Step Two: Student A pairs up with Student B and then talks about their topic for four minutes. Student B cannot interrupt, even to ask questions. Once the four minutes are up, Student B gets to speak for four minutes. This time, Student A patiently listens.

• Step Three: Student A now pairs up with Student C and repeats the process. However, this time, they only speak for three minutes.

• Step Four: Student A is now with Student D but speaking for two minutes.

There are some great videos to watch to learn more. Paul Nation delivered a presentation on developing fluency in reading and includes an explanation of his 4/3/2 method. There’s also this video by IELTS Master that explains the activity directly to students.

Image soure: https://soundpracticelanguagelearning.com/2020/04/11/whatisoralfluency/

 Why does this work?

 There are three reasons why this exercise is more valuable than a turn-and-talk and not a waste of 9 minutes:

1. Different audience: the student doesn’t feel the pressure to add new information, because the topic is new to the listener each time.

2. Repetition: each time the student repeats their talk they become more confident and have less difficulty in accessing the vocabulary needed

3. Time reduction: as the student becomes more fluent in their speech, they need less time. As the time reduces at the same rate, they don’t have any pressure to fill the rest of the time with new information.

A study of ten randomly selected ELL participants in Algeria found that “repeating the same talk three times yields positive effects on enhancing’ fluency maximizing students’ speaking speed, accuracy, and conciseness as well as reducing their hesitation and unwillingness” .

How can I change it up?

For lower-level students Christopher Redmond uses the same principles to improve the yes/no game. For higher-level students Olya Sergeeva adds mind-mapping with related English-language expressions. It can also be used to help students practice for presenting their Genius Hour projects or any other non-scripted presentations.

Have you ever done this activity with your students? It was new to me as a French teacher, but seems to be pretty popular with ELL teachers. Feel free to share in the comments!

Teaching with Music Videos

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use music videos as a gateway for language learning.

Music, especially music videos with their creative visuals, are an amazing access point for language learning. Not only are our brains hardwired for music, most musicians are way cooler than the majority of language teachers will ever hope to be.

I’ve involved music videos in my curriculum in a lot of different ways. It can be a complement to a unit not related to music. For example, when doing a thematic unit there’s usually a music video or two that you can find that can be used as a good hook for your lesson. There’s a French song called “Cendrillon” which I only use for my oldest students during our fairy tale unit because despite the upbeat song and video, the lyrics are dark. I’ve also made music one of the focuses of the unit. For example, in my unit on natural disasters, I was able to find quite a lot of songs that talk about the weather literally and metaphorically (See: Neko Case’s English song “This Tornado Loves You” or Indila’s French song “Dernière Danse”). We focused a lot on pronunciation, literary devises, and rhyming. Then, the final project for the class was writing and performing a poem (since songs are just poems sung aloud). Moreover, I’ve used songs to illustrate certain grammatical concepts. For example, there is a song called “Si” (“If”) by Zaz that works for teaching the conditional in French or Mika’s “Elle Me Dit” for indirect pronouns.

Music Wednesdays:

There is one way I like use music videos throughout the entire year, which is the focus of today’s post: Music Wednesday (or “Musique Mercredi”)! Each Wednesday (I chose the day both for the alliteration and the fact that half-way through the week it’s nice to have a musical pick-me-up) a student or two presents a music video in the target language.    

A student picks a song that is primarily in the target language and has either an engaging (but appropriate) video or lyrics video. The student then makes a presentation (powerpoint, googleslides, prezzi, etc.) that includes the following:

1. the title of the song

2. the name of the artist (with a photo)

3. the musical genre of the song

4. the artist’s country of origin

5. three interesting facts about the song and/or the artist

6. five words found in the song lyrics

7. a quick summary of the song’s meaning

Something that I tend to harp on about in my classroom is that there are a lot of strategies that one can rely on if you don’t know a word beyond translating into the L1. Therefore, for the ‘five words found in the song lyrics’ part of the presentation, students need to put up words from the lyrics that was new to them and have the class guess the definition using inference. To get full marks they need to use a variety of ways to give clues to their classmates, such as:

1. Gestures

2. Sounds

3. Synonyms

4. Antonyms

5. Related words

6. Roots of the word

7. Images

As the presentations progress I have students keep a list of vocabulary in their journals. Then, at the end of the year, they need to use the musique mercredi vocabulary in their final projects (see: genius hour post). The vocab words also make great improv or quickwrite prompts!

I make my own presentation for when I explain the assignment, modeling what I am looking for them to do. Students then sign up for when they will present throughout the semester. If they want to ‘claim’ a song, they must write it down on the list. I don’t let students re-use the same song, artist, or vocabulary words of another student. I also want students to expand their musical repetoire and search out more diverse artists. Personally, I know that my musical tastes are very North-American/Euro-centric and I want to encourage my students to find artists with a variety of styles and origins.

RESOURCE: Musique Mercredi rubric (rubric is in English)

RESOURCE: The presentation I use to model (French)

RESOURCE: Sign-up list

RESOURCE: A student example (since this ppt is in pdf format, the definition of the word is not obscured, as it would be while the class guesses).

RESOURCE: Manie Musicale is a competition where students vote on their favorite French songs from a field of sixteen. The songs are chosen from french-speaking artists from around the world.

RESOURCE: My amazing friend Vanessa Drew has created a powerpoint with a variety of francophone artists from around the world.

RESOURCE: My other amazing friend Mariève has a folder of French songs with lyrics as well as song analysis activities

What are ways you use music videos in your classroom? Feel free to share in the comments!

Halloween Activities in the Language Classroom

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to provide fun activities so that your students can celebrate Halloween and/or enjoy spooky characters and legends.

The Social Studies department was the Flinstone Family and I was Baby Pebbles!

I LOVE Halloween sooooo verrrry much. I know that there are a lot of reasons not to celebrate it in schools, though the schools I’ve taught in have gone whole hog into Halloween, with costume contests (for students and teachers!) and a big dance thrown by the Student Council. In my classes I’ve always made the activities optional, though I realize in hindsight I could’ve been more in tune with how the ‘opt-out’ formula doesn’t work when kids are afraid of being different than their peers. When I return to the classroom, I think I’ll have different stations set up with equally-as-fun options. Also, probably a lot more discussions about cultural appropriation and stereotyping when it comes to costumes!

In a language class, depending on the target-language and the cultures that speak it, Halloween can also be a rich topic of discussion about how traditions change over time (see resources for advanced learners below), as well as attitudes towards the dead. Even if Halloween isn’t your thing, there is some fun in telling spoooooky stories at any time during the dark winter months.

In the interest of my target language, did you know that there is a France connection to the origin of Halloween? France and Belgium have traditionally celebrated All Saints Day, but have adopted more and more of the North American Halloween. There are many Halloween traditions in Quebec, much like the rest of Canada. Haiti has La fête des Guédé, a voodoo Day of the Dead, though I’ve read that many Haitian Christians participate as well.

Halloween Activities for Beginners:

Truly one of the best pumpkins I’ve ever carved… Jacques O’Lantern!

 For beginners, vocabulary is really the name of the game. Usually I start off with a ‘vocabulary scramble’ where I post pictures around the room with numbers on them. Students then walk around the room and write the number (and translation if they need it) on the lines. It gets everyone up and walking around, and if I have a particularly competitive class I’ll make it a race to the finish with a prize.

RESOURCE: Halloween vocabulary scramble

Vocabulary can then be reinforced with a vocabulary sudoku. This can be adapted to any language: just “search, find, replace” the vocabulary words so that “la lune” becomes whatever a moon is in your target language and then the whole thing works!

RESOURCE: Halloween Sudoku

I then add grammar practice to the newly gained vocabulary through a Halloween graphic. Again, this can be adapted to any new language if that language uses comparisons, superlatives, and/or prepositions. It’s just a Halloween-based image that has students making relationships between things (the bat is smaller than the witch; the bat is to the right of the witch). There’s a blank space in the middle for students to draw whatever vocab they want to add to the picture.  

I found this example in a book, took a picture, and wish I could attribute it to the original author. Does anyone recognize this? I think it was by the same publisher that does “Les 10”

RESOURCE: Halloween Prepositions & Halloween Prepositions Key

RESOURCE: Halloween Comparisons and Superlatives (this one I ended up hand drawing horns on the bald guy to be ‘the devil’)

I’ve always wanted to do this activity, but never got around to it, but having students create “wanted posters” for spooky characters would be, I think, a lot of fun. It’s especially helpful to reinforce descriptive vocabulary.

RESOURCE: Strange Creatures Wanted Poster

This is only for the ELL teachers out there, though the discussion question part could be modified for any language, and perhaps even the listening part if you were very keen, but I really enjoy discussions with students about UFOs! I feel like I learn a lot about them from how they would react to strange beings appearing on Earth. And if you really want to further the lesson, there’s a lot of interesting discussions to be had around modern immigration attitudes.

RESOURCE: ELL Aliens Activity

This is only for the French teachers out there, but I couldn’t let this list be without mentioning that the classic “C’est l’Halloween” by Matt Maxwell is on YouTube. It’s great for beginners as it has simple vocabulary, clear voice, and a chance to practice counting 1-18!

RESOURCE: C’est l’Halloween PPT (made by eTools for Teachers) & C’est l’Halloween lyrics 

Halloween Activities for more advanced learners:

Campfire stories with an iPad fire

Speaking: CAMPFIRE STORIES! Obviously, you can’t light a fire in a school, but my solution to that has been to borrow an iPad cart, put all the iPads to a campfire video, and we sit around them and tell stories! I’ve done this with legends and ghost stories I’ve given to students to read as a group, and then adapt into a quick skit to share the legends with the rest of the class. You could also do vocabulary improv prompts and have students present. Or a one-word-story… see how long you can keep the story going around the campfire!

Reading/Speaking: The history of Halloween is very interesting. As mentioned above, there’s also some interesting debate topics for students to hash out: should Halloween be banned from schools? What costumes are and are not appropriate to wear? What’s scarier: killer clowns or giant spiders?

RESOURCE: French history of Halloween

Listening comprehension: watch a video in the target language about the history of Halloween or particularly spooky stories in the target-language

Specifically for French teachers, did you know that TV5Monde has an amazing collection of Quebecois, Acadian and Indigenous legends? For a spooky vibe, you can use two of their ghosty legends: La Dame Blanch or Le beau fantôme du capitaine Craig.

RESOURCE: TV5Monde’s teacher’s guide or the worksheet I’ve adapted from those resources (Dame Blanche)

RESOURCE: TV5Monde’s teacher’s guide or the worksheet I’ve adapted from those resources (Capitaine Craig)

Writing: This is more spooky than directly related to Halloween, but I personally am a big fan of urban legends such as Big Foot, little green men, Loch Ness monster, weird crop circles, haunted dolls, etc. One assignment I’ve done with more advanced students is have them read newspaper and blog articles and then analyse them for style. Their assignment is then to write an article (EXAMPLE: Big Foot Article written by a student).

RESOURCE: Information sheet about the structure of an article in French (not my resource, created by Marie-France Rachédi)

RESOURCE: Urban Legends article assignment explanation and rubric (I will caution and say that this is an ooooollllldddddd assessment, so I do not assess exactly like this anymore, but it might be a helpful starting point if you want one)

RESOURCE: A list of blog sites (again, this is old, so they might not all exist anymore) of various urban legend phenomenon

Let me know in the comments what resources you like using around this time of year! Do you avoid Halloween, embrace it, or put your twist on it? Feel free to share!

"Picture Stories": Using YouTube Videos for grammar practice

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use YouTube videos to engage students in grammar practice.

A quick and easy way to use a YouTube video is to show and respond to it (no prep needed). However, if you're willing to put a little time in before hand, you can jazz it up for some fun times. All you need is a word document and the ability to take a screen shot (on Mac it's command+control+shift+4).

Step Zero (before students): find a YouTube video (either in the target language or one that is mostly silent, like Mr. Bean). For this case, we're using Le Grenouille Qui Était Un Prince. Take screen grabs of some interesting looking scenes. Make a word document, like this one: Le Grenouille Qui Était Un Prince Picture Story

Step One (with students): students make up sentences (using the grammar structure you want to practice) based on the pictures that they see (DO NOT show the video yet).

You can project the screen captures using a projector if you can only print in black-and-white (as I could only do). That way students can see detail. Encourage students to really stretch their imaginations, don't rely on stories they already know. For example, the first screen grab is of the king giving his daughter a golden ball, which she will lose, and a magic frog will save for her. Looking at the photo where father and daughter are hugging, we instead decide the sentence will be "La princesse (qui est un zombie) vole un bal d’or en mangeant le cerveau du roi." (The princess, who is a zombie, stole a golden ball while eating the king's brains). So, some imagination + using the present participle.

This is a great activity to do in pairs, or groups. Also super funny to share out, since they'll be unique (unlike the 'real answers'). You can even have students do a jigsaw activity, going around the room writing down their responses to each photo, and then go celebrate/correct their sentences before the second part of the activity.  I like this because they get immediate feedback on the grammar structure before reinforcing it further in step two.

Step Two: Watch the video. Stop after each scene that the picture represents and have students write a sentence that describes what 'actually' happened. For example, "La princesse dit « merci » en embrassant son père." (The princess said thank you while hugging her father <--- told you it was less exciting than zombies!). This can be done as an extension/homework if students have access to computers to watch the YouTube video.

The sky is the limit, and once you've go the template, it's easy to replicate. I've done this with all sorts of stories, including, as mentioned above, Mr. Bean videos! (RESOURCE: Mr. Bean Picture Story with Si-Clauses) When I'm in a real rush, sometimes I'll reuse the stories for other grades/units, just swap in a new grammar concept. While ideally the video is relevant to the unit we're doing, sometimes you need to plan something for a substitute teacher at 1am, and this is an easy thing to create!