When is a board not a board?

Classes differ in terms of location, status and amount of technological equipment, and in the age, level and number of students, but they all have one thing in common: a board. Teachers are always using the board, but there may be much greater potential to exploit this resource than many people think. One way of finding new possibilities is by using metaphors. This article considers a number of metaphors for the board, and suggests that creative thinking may help teachers find the full potential of this ubiquitous ‘empty space’ resource.

1 - When it’s a window

Draw the diagram below, with the rectangle as the edge of the board. Explain that it shows the past, seen through a broken window. The shapes represent times. The cross on the window represents the present, the long ribbon stretching from the window back into the past represents the present perfect. The circles are times in the past; the smaller the circle, the further it is from the present. Ask your students to match each of the nine sentences below with one of the shapes on the board.
1 I played tennis on Thursday.
 2 My great grandfather was born 90 years ago.
 3 I have lived in London for five years.
 4 I like swimming.
5 I passed my exams last month.
6 I started working in 2004.
7 My uncle got married in 1960.
8 This time last year, I was in Germany.
 9 I first met Mary 12 years ago.
                                                         Answers:
 4 = present tense (X); 3 = present perfect tense (ribbon); past tense sentences from oldest (the dot) to most recent (the biggest circle): 2, 7, 9, 6, 8, 5, 1.




2- When it’s the teacher’s voice

When it’s the teacher’s voice Instead of giving instructions verbally, write them on the board. They could be given as a dialogue for the students to practise, as below. A: We are doing Exercise 2 on page 16. B: What do we have to do? A: Fill in the blanks. B: It looks difficult A: Not really – you can use the words in the box. B: Oh, I see. But there are seven words. A: Yes, one of them is not used. B: OK. It should take about three minutes, right? A: Yes, and I think the first answer is ‘wrote’. Here is the same information in note form for the students to decode: Pls open yr bks @ p16, Ex 2, fill in ______s w/words in 4 3 mins, 6 wds +1 xtra. No. 1= wrote .

3- When it’s a pair of  curtains

Write a sentence from one side of the board to the other, with the words starting with consecutive letters of the alphabet to make it easy to remember, eg A black cat doesn’t eat fish, gets happy in John’s kitchen, likes making noise on purpose – quite rowdy sometimes!After the class has practised it, tell them that the board has a pair of curtains in front of it. To represent the curtains closing, rub a word off either end of the sentence, and ask the students to remember the missing words. Keep closing the curtains until only one or two words are left in the middle, and ask them to remember the whole sentence.
Divide the class into two teams, with one student from each team writing the words back in place with the help of their team. Starting from the middle, one team writes from left to right (to the end), and the other from right to left (to the beginning). When they have finished, the curtains are open again.

4- When it’s a seating plan

Draw a plan of the class on the board, with each student represented by a box with their name in it. This can have many uses. For example:
to nominate a student – Ask a question and point to a box. If your students are competitive, tick the box for each correct answer.
to change pairs during speaking activities – Draw a line between pairs of students and change these every minute or so to create new pairs.
to create a drill – Take a ten-word sentence from your coursebook and
practise it. Write the numbers 1 to 10  on the plan at random. Ask the students to read the sentence from the book one word at a time, in the order you have given, then from memory
with books closed. Change the order of the students and/or choose different students and repeat.

5 - When it’s a table

Explain that the board is a table seen from above. A group of six people are sitting around it, having a meal. Mark their places on the edge of the board, give them names and personalities (eg characters from a coursebook). 

Ask for suggestions about who they talk to and what they talk about, and draw lines and symbols to represent these conversations. In the example below, Bill is in love with Jane, and Bill talks about their
forthcoming wedding to John and Joanne, Joanne talks to Jane about the weather, and to Maria about money, and so on. There also are general topics: John’s 28th birthday, Maria’s copyright for her new book, and Ron’s trip to Egypt. When the plan is finished, set up a roleplay in groups of six. You can feed in new topics/partners by writing on the board to extend the activity.

6 - When it’s a stage

Tell your students to imagine that the board is a large hall with a big audience (draw lots of circles to represent their heads). The students take turns to come to the stage and address the audience, ie they face towards the board, away from the class. Facing away from the class is particularly helpful for less confident students. Give a task, such as reciting a short poem or dialogue, or giving a short talk. Encourage the students to project their voices, because of the size of the audience. The rest of the class, who are ‘backstage’ and out of view of the audience, can prompt if necessary.

7 - When it’s a desktop

Write five questions on the board, eg
1 What did you do yesterday?
2 Can you swim?
3 Are you going to study tonight?
4 How many English words do you know?
5 Do you like ice cream?
Ask the students to memorise the
questions, which are then erased, leaving
just the numbers to represent desktop  files containing the questions. The students mingle and ask each other the questions from memory. After a short time, tell them that the questions have changed as follows:
1 is now last weekend
2 is play tennis
3 is watch TV
4 is people (instead of words)
5 is eggs
Without reminding them of the original questions, ask the students to make the changes in their mental desktop files. Repeat the mingle, then introduce more changes:
1 see
2 play golf
3 go out
4 French (not English)
5 carrots
The students mingle once more. Then you stop the activity and say that you forgot to save the original version of the questions and ask the students to supply them.

8- When it’s a mirror

When the board is full and needs cleaning, tell the students that it’s a mirror that must be polished very carefully for a special occasion. Close your eyes and tell the students to give you instructions to clean it so there is no mark left. Teach expressions such as at the top, in the top left corner, in the middle, on the left side, left a bit, down a bit, rub a bit more.

9- When it’s a painting

Write the following letters on the board:
A, E, R, T, L, D, S, P, I, F. Tell the students that the board is a beautiful painting and they have to find what is in it by asking you yes/no questions, as follows:
S1: Is there a river in the painting?
T:  No, there isn’t.
S2: Are there any trees?
T:  Yes, there are lots.
S3: Is there a mountain?
T:  No mountain.
S4: A field?
T:  Right.
Ask the students if they understand how the game works: only words which can be spelled with the letters on the board are in the painting. Then let them play in pairs.

10 - When it’s the students’ memory

Write eight or nine recently-learnt words, scattered over the whole board. Ask one student to erase the words. Ask another to write the words back again, but tell the student with the board cleaner to erase the words as soon as they are written. Stop this activity after a short time and explain that the student with the pen represents learning, the
student with the eraser represents time and the board represents the students’ memory. Time will erase the words if they are not frequently revised. Give another student a board pen, so there are two writing and only one erasing. This shows that it is easier to keep the words in your memory when you see them often. Finally, have three or four students writing, so that there is no opportunity for the words to be forgotten.
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All classrooms have boards, and unlike much technological equipment, they are always available and 100 percent reliable. Metaphors can help us use the board in creative ways, and even transform the classroom into a different place. The advantage of this empty space is its simplicity – it can become whatever our imaginations allow it to be.

Reference: English Teaching Professional, issue 86, May 2013