ESL Jigsaws

Murder in the Parking Garage

Posted by Nancy Callan on 8 June 2013 | 0 Comments

Tags: soft skills, death, murder, passive voice, simple past, present perfect, adjective, ESL, ELL, ENL, EFL, ESOL

In 2011 I wrote about teaching about death in the ESL / EFL / ELL classroom. Students know that they need the soft skills required to respond to news about a death. The Widow jigsaw in Contemporary Jigsaws 1 and 2 works as an effective springboard for this topic. While it focuses on the passive voice, there’s lots of scope for other grammar points. Here’s a suggestion of some follow up activities. Start with explaining the differences between the following and you will have students full attention:

• He died.

• He is dying.

• He is dead.

• He was dead.

• He was killed.

• She is a widow.

• She was widowed.

Imagine how confusing that could be for beginner or intermediate ESL students!

I’ve made an exercise about a murder for students to practice to die and to kill. Click on the image below to view it large and print it for use in your own classroom. Let me know how it works.