Looking for Mr. Right

Because Debra had just bought a new laptop computer, she decided that she must start cutting back on some expenses if she could. Her long distance phone bill was one expense that sprang to mind. She was paying almost $30 a month to Horizon, her local phone company. That $30 covered her residence line and various taxes, surcharges, funds, fees, and services. It also covered her local phone callsthose to locations within 12 miles.But she was paying another $40-$80 a month talking to her best friend and to her boyfriend, both of whom lived more than 12 miles away from her. But how could she not talk to her best friend and to her boyfriend? Could she tell them she was having budget problems, so could they please call her in the future? Could she just call them less oftena lot less often?Fortunately for Debra, she found the solution a month later, when she tearfully discovered that her boyfriend and her best friend were seeing each other behind Debras back. Debra saw them kissing in his car outside of a restaurant that all three of them liked to visit occasionally. Debra immediately called Horizon to cancel her long distance service. The female customer service representative asked if she was sure she wanted to do this. Debra said, Yes, Im sure. All men are jerks. The representative agreed enthusiastically with her.Debra was only on her new computer for a week before she discovered Computer Dating, a service that promised: Ladies, you will get to choose from hundreds of men in your own ZIP code area. New selections every day. Only $29.95 a month! As much as she hated her boyfriend, Debra knew that not all men were alike. Maybe Mr. Right was waiting for her on her computer screen. Maybe he was living only a block away. And she did happen to have $30 available.

The French Burglar Many years ago a burglar broke into an apartment in Paris. He wanted to steal the paintings in the house. However, after he broke in he realised that he was hungry. He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He saw two bottles of his favorite wine and one of his favorite cheeses. He ate the cheese and drank the wine.Then he felt sleepy, so he went upstairs into the bedroom. He fell asleep. The next morning he woke up and found that his bed was surrounded by police officers. They arrested him.Try out these stories in your class, create your own ESL short stories and also get your students to prepare and tell their own stories. This is a fun way to begin a class, and by carefully choosing the type of story you use (for example a story like 'Battersea Dogs' Home, when you are teaching the passive) you can create a smooth flow into the next part of your class.

Battersea Dog's Home Something strange happened in the dogs' home. Every morning the workers at the dogs' home found the kitchen in a mess. Food was everywhere on the floor, but all the dogs were in their cages. So cameras were put up in the building and the dogs were filmed. What they found surprised everybody.The cages were locked with bolts, and one dog opened his cage with his nose. He then opened all his friends' cages. Together all the dogs went into the kitchen and the same dog opened the refrigerator. The dogs then had a party, running around and eating all the food they could. Later they returned to their cages to sleep.The next day the doors were really locked so they couldn't open them. The video was shown on British TV and soon there were many offers of a home for this very smart dog.For the student the benefits are practice in spoken English, using past tenses, and a gain in confidence in their ability to speak English. Once the students are able to tell their own stories, it can also bring the class closer together, and make the class more interesting.

25,000 Big Macs- A true story about a man who loves Big Macs. Here is the story.Thirty nine years ago an American man celebrated buying a new car by eating his first Big Mac. Since then he has eaten 25,000 Big Macs. Mc Donald's congratulated the man (a 57 year old prison guard). He said, "I plan to eat Big Macs until I die. They're still my favorite food." He also said that it takes him 16 bites to finish a Big Mac. He has missed eating Big Macs on only 8 days in the past 39 years. The man said that he likes counting things and doesn't like change. He told reporters that his wife never has to think what to cook him for dinner. Finally, he said, "I really do enjoy every Big Mac."I would adjust the above story, cutting out any parts which I thought would be too difficult for my students. Some new vocabulary makes the exercise interesting, too much would stop it working.I would end up with a list something like this on the board: celebrate.....new car eat...........first Big Mac congratulate say...........until/die say...........16 bites miss.........8 days say...........counting things tell............wife/dinner say............enjoyInstead of the notes you could draw simple sketches. This works better if you can draw quickly. A car and a hamburger would be easy to draw - even for someone with my limited artistic talents. Either pictures or words will help you to remind yourself, and the students, of the story. Having the verbs in the present tense helps focus the students' minds on changing them into the past tense. In this story 'say' is repeated a few times, but as this is quite natural when telling a story about someone else it works well.My FlightSeveral years ago, took a flight from Hong Kong to London. When we were halfway between Hong Kong and Bangkok one of the engines burst into flames. The plane dropped suddenly for what felt like a long time. The captain shouted to the passengers and crew, "We're going back to Hong Kong! We're going back to Hong Kong!" Even the flight attendants looked frightened. There was silence on the plane.We flew back to Hong Kong. This was many years ago when the airport was built in the city and the runway stretched into the sea. There were fire engines and ambulances along the sides of the runway. We landed safely, and the airline put us into a hotel for the night. The next day they put us on a flight with a different airline.My list of verbs might look something like this: take.....a flight are......halfway burst....flames drop.....long time look.....frightened is.......silence fly......Hong Kong are......fire engines and ambulances land..... put......hotel put......flight

Love HurtsThe old house was sold. A new house was yet to be purchased, so Randy was going to rent for a while. He was moving from Virginia to California. The move would put some memories behind him. He was looking forward to a fresh start.Randy and Nora got married six years ago. It was the first marriage for both of them. Eight months after the marriage, Nora found out she was pregnant. That was good. When she started getting stomachaches, they figured it was the new baby. But then she miscarried.The stomachaches, however, continued. In fact, they got worse. It wasnt a simple stomachache. It was liver cancer. Then it was stomach cancer, lymph gland cancer, breast cancer, and brain cancer. It never stopped spreading. There was little hope, but Nora battled the daily pain with smiles and few complaints.After five years of doctors, hospitals, chemotherapy, and surgery, Nora lost the battle. More than one million dollars was spent on medical bills, more than ten thousand prayers were said by family and friendsall to no avail. The only time that Randy asked the doctor for his honest opinion, the doctor said, She might have six months. Nora died seven days later. Just before she died, she silently squeezed Randys hand.The mover took six hours longer to load the moving van than he had estimated originally. Randy wondered how much extra this was going to cost him. After the mover and his crew had departed for California, Randy noticed a 3-foot scar in his new hardwood floor. It looked like the crew had dragged his heavy metal bed frame. Randy hoped the new homeowner wouldnt complain about it too much. He wondered how many damaged goods were in the moving van right now.The phone rang. It was the California-bound car transporter. He told Randy that his truck was at the corner of Fifth and Main, and he would wait for Randy there. Randy walked out to his car. In five minutes, he was at Fifth and Main. He gave the transporter the ignition key and watched him drive his car up the ramp onto the truck. There were five other cars already on the truck. The transporter said, Ill call you in nine days, and drove off. Randy hailed a cab.Eleven days later, Randy got the call. The transporter said he would be in Milroy, Randys new town, in three hours. Five hours later, the transporter arrived. Randy watched as the transporter backed his car down the ramp. The car was filthy. The transporter explained that bad weather had slowed him downtornadoes, rain, and dust storms. No locusts? Randy wondered to himself.Randy drove his car to the carwash. While sitting in a chair waiting for the car to be finished, he saw a young pretty woman introduce herself to an aging TV reporter. She proceeded to laugh at his every word, touching him occasionally on the hand and knee. Randy wondered if a woman would ever come on to him like that. Then he thought about Nora squeezing his hand.

Bride-and-Seek (The Missing Bride)An Urban Legend

Back in '75 a young couple, both 18, decided to get married right after high school. The father of the bride lived in Palm Beach in a mansion and was able to afford a big wedding for them. To make a long story short, they got married and the wedding was beautiful.After the wedding they had a big reception in an old building and everyone got pretty drunk. When there were only about 20 people left, the groom decided that they should play hide-and-seek. Everyone agreed and the groom was "it." They all went and hid and the game went on.After about 20 minutes everyone had been found except the bride. Everyone looked everywhere and tore the whole place apart looking for her. After a few hours the groom was furious, thinking the bride was playing a terrible trick. Eventually, everyone went home.A few weeks later the groom, having placed a missing persons report, gave up looking for her. Heartbroken, he tried to go on with his life.Three years later a little old woman was cleaning the place up. She happened to be in the attic and saw an old trunk. She dusted it off, and, out of curiosity, opened it. She screamed at the top of her lungs, ran out of the building and called the police.Apparently, the bride had decided to hide in the trunk for the game of hide-and-seek. When she sat down, the lid fell, knocking her unconscious and locking her inside. She suffocated after a day or so. When the woman found her, she was rotting, her mouth in the shape of a scream.

The Boyfriend'sDeathA woman and her boyfriend were on their way home from somewhere (not important) one night, and suddenly his car ran out of gas. It was about one in the morning and they were completely alone in the middle of the nowhere.The guy stepped out of the car, saying comfortingly to his girlfriend, "Don't worry, I'll be right back. I'm just going to go out for some help. Lock the doors, though."She locked the doors and sat restlessly, waiting for her boyfriend to come back. Suddenly, she sees a shadow fall across her lap. She looks up to see... not her boyfriend, but a strange, crazed looking man. He is swinging something in his right hand.He sticks his face close to the window and slowly pulls up his right hand. In it is her boyfriend's decapitated head, twisted horribly in pain and shock. She shuts her eyes in horror and tries to make the image go away. When she opens her eyes, the man is still there, grinning psychotically. He slowly lifts his left hand, and he is holding her boyfriend's keys... to the car.

Interactive Story TellingSue Swiftshows how to use interative story telling to practise both listening and speaking skills.

An activity which practises both listening and speaking in the classroom is interactive story telling. I usually use short stories, but if you wanted to and had the time you could also tell your students the story of a whole novel, in instalments as the course progressed.

The activity works in the following way: the teacher divides the students into pairs and tells them that s/he's going to tell them a story. At certain points in the story s/he pauses and asks them to discuss something with their partner - to decide what a character who has just been introduced looks like (a good activity if you've just been working on describing people) or what the place where the story takes place is like, to decide what a character is thinking about, what is going to happen next etc. After the students have had time to discuss in pairs, the teacher asks for their ideas, chooses the version which fits the story (or if there isn't one that's suitable says, "No, none of you have guessed. In fact..." and then provides another version before continuing. I often use adapted and updated Sufi stories (1) for this. Here's one of my favourites, The Mexican and the Bicycle:

A policeman was working on the border between Mexico and the United States (Describe the policeman) when, one day, a Mexican arrived on a bicycle. (Describe the Mexican) The man had a large bag on his back (Describe the bag), and the policeman was sure that he was smuggling something, so he asked him to open the bag. (What do you think was inside?)

But inside the bag there was only sand. The policeman poured all the sand onto the ground, but there was nothing else in the bag, (So what did he do?) and so he let the man go.

For the next few years this happened two or three times a week. The Mexican arrived on a bicycle and was always carrying a bag of sand. The policeman became more and more convinced that the man was smuggling something, but he could never find out what it was. (Why do you think the man was always carrying the bag of sand? How do you think the policeman felt? What do you think he thought?)

Years later, after the policeman retired, he was drinking in a bar one evening (Describe the bar) when the Mexican came in. The policeman bought him a drink (What were they drinking?) and, while they were sitting and chatting together, said "Come on, you can tell me now. I'm retired and it doesn't matter any more. I know that for all those years you were smuggling something. What was it?"

The Mexican looked at him, smiled, and said (What did he say?) "Bicycles.