Sample task 1
From text to writing
Level: intermediate to advanced

A group of undergraduate engineering/science students following a course in a FL are given a short article on a specific topic (for example, the sample text on cloning, as below). They are asked to read the article and to identify the vocabulary specific to the topic. Following this, they are asked to highlight the arguments, as presented by the journalist. They then draw on the information gained to write a 150 word summary, giving and supporting their own opinions on the subject: 'Are you personally for or against cloning?'. The students have already been given a list of expressions to use in the target language to express their own opinion.

Sample article:
January 12, 1998. Web posted at: 8:00 p.m. EST (0100 GMT)

PARIS (CNN) -- Nineteen European nations on Monday signed an agreement to prohibit the cloning of humans.

Representatives from 19 members of the Council of Europe signed a protocol that would commit their countries to ban by law "any intervention seeking to create human beings genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead." It rules out any exception to the ban, even in the case of a completely sterile couple.

"At a time when occasional voices are being raised to assert the acceptability of human cloning and even to put it more rapidly into practice, it is important for Europe solemnly to declare its determination to defend human dignity against the abuse of scientific techniques," Council Secretary-General Daniel Tarchys said.

The text, which is to become a part of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, would permit cloning of cells for research purposes. The accord will become binding on the signatories as soon as it has been ratified in five states. Countries signing are: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Macedonia and Turkey.

Britain and Germany -- two of Europe's biggest nations -- did not sign the protocol. Germany claims the measure is weaker than a current German law that forbids all research on human embryos - a reaction to Nazi genetic engineering experiments. Britain, where scientists are at the forefront of cloning, has a strong tradition of defending the freedoms of scientific research.

French President Jacques Chirac, at a conference of Europe's national ethics committees, said: "Nothing will be resolved by banning certain practices in one country if scientists and doctors can simply work on them elsewhere. It is only at the international level that we will be able to prohibit cloning and genetic manipulation that could alter the characteristics of the human race."

Fears about the dangers of genetic engineering are on the rise as cloning, the exact reproduction of a living being via the replication of the individual's genetic structure, appears to be at hand. Researchers in Scotland ignited the debate over cloning last March with the announcement that they had cloned a sheep, which they named Dolly.

Britain's Independent on Sunday newspaper said that experiments in human cloning could begin in the United Kingdom as early as next year.

Richard Seed, a Harvard University-educated physicist, caused an uproar last week when he said he was ready to set up a clinic to clone human babies and predicted that as many as 200,000 human clones a year would be produced once his process was perfected.

He boasted that he could produce a human clone within 18 months.

In reaction to this, President Clinton on Saturday called for a five-year ban on human cloning experiments.

Correspondent Margaret Lowrie, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sample task 2
Writing haiku and shape poems
Level: any

Poetry provides a rich stimulus for written activities. Hadfield and Hadfield (1990) suggest haiku poems as useful for exploration in class. Examples of haiku poetry by the well-known Japanese poet Matsuo Basho are as follows:

SUMMER grasses -
All that remains
Of soldiers' visions.

You say one word
And lips are chilled
By autumn's wind.

After familiarizing themselves with the structure of haiku, students try to write their own poems in groups. This activity works well if students try to 'guess' subsequently the theme that other groups have been asked to write about. More advanced students might also like to discuss the suitability of 'translating' this concept of haiku into other languages. Does the language lend itself to this structure? What is lost in translation?

Sample task 3
Writing a résumé of a radio broadcast
Level: advanced

Final-year undergraduate students are asked to write an 800-word summary of a 10-minute radio recording of contemporary interest, delivered in the FL. They are asked to give their opinion about the subject and the way in which it is treated in the extract.

Sample task 4
Interactive letter writing
Level: elementary to higher intermediate

Rinvolucri (1990) comments that letter writing in class round a theme can open up subsequent discussion. Any theme may be proposed that is pertinent to the interests and focus of the group, and learners are asked to write letters to each other on this theme. They then 'deliver' their letters and the other person may answer it or not. After twenty to thirty minutes writing, each person who has a letter they would like to make public asks the writer of the letter if making it public is acceptable. Learners then read their letters out. Animated discussion may grow from this.

Sample task 5
Writing a short film script
Level: advanced

FL students are given a passage from a piece of literature which has cinematographic properties. Working in groups, they try to devise a set, and then one or two pages of dialogue to show how the film would start.

Prior to this, they can examine how a specified book has been adapted into a film. An example in English might be the opening pages of A Room with a View, by E M Forster. The procedure might be as follows:

1. Read the first two or three pages of the text.
2. Speculate on how the information will be conveyed through the film.
3. Look at the opening scenes. Are your expectations confirmed?

Forster's novel is particularly interesting because it focuses on the issue of class and society. In the film, for example, one becomes aware of the disdain which the female characters have for the two men. Students might be asked what the film says about the social class and attitude of the characters that may not be apparent from the original text.