37. Game

Group Exercise. 1. Did you ever telephone? Make believe that you are telephoning to a classmate. Hold the make-believe telephone in your hands and call for the pupil with whom you wish to talk. He will take up his make-believe telephone and answer you. Ask him some questions. Listen to what he says. Reply to what he asks. In this way carry on a conversation with him.

2. The class will listen, and when you have finished talking they will tell you what they liked and what they did not like in the telephone conversation. The following questions[15] will help the class to decide how the talks might have been better:

1. What interesting thing was said by the speakers?

2. Was any poor English used?

3. Were the voices of the speakers pleasant?

4. What might have been said that the speakers did not say?

3. Other pairs of pupils may now telephone. Each pair will of course try to make their conversation as bright as they can. The class will enjoy listening to the bright talks.

4. Would it not be a good plan, before going on with this game of telephoning, for the class to make a telephone directory? All names beginning with A could be written on one page of a little notebook that you could make. All names beginning with B would go on another page. And so it would go on, through the C's, the D's, the E's, to the end of the alphabet. Then each name could be given a number, just as in telephone books. Perhaps the teacher will bring a telephone directory to class and explain it to you.

5. It might be fun to place in your telephone directory such names as Jack Frost, Santa Claus, Peter the toymaker's son, Joseph his brother, Queen Mab, the busy ant, the lazy grasshopper, and some of the Indians and Eskimos that you have come to know in this book. Then you could telephone to these. One pupil would be Jack Frost and would always answer when Jack Frost's number rang. Another would be Santa Claus, another would be Peter the toymaker's son, another Queen Mab, and so on.

6. You and your classmates may now have the following conversations over the make-believe class telephone:

1. A conversation between Queen Mab and Jack Frost about some pupils in your class

2. A conversation between Peter and Joseph about the lost magic ring

3. A conversation between the ant and the grasshopper in the fable

4. A conversation between an Indian boy and a white boy

5. A conversation between two fairies, one in the woods and one in Santa Claus's workshop

6. A conversation between a polar bear and a boy hunter (the bear objects to being hunted)

7. A conversation between an Eskimo girl and a girl in your class

8. A conversation between Santa Claus and the teacher about some pupils in your class

9. A conversation between two girls about a plan for a good time next Saturday with which to surprise the class

10. A conversation between two girls about a new dress that one of them will soon wear to school