Monthly Archives: November 2025

Informal Emails: Collaborative Writing with Personality Adjectives and Advice Structures

General
As teachers, we’re always looking for ways to make writing more engaging, especially at B2 level where students are ready to go beyond textbook exercises. One of my favourite activities combines informal email writing, personality adjectives, and advice-giving structures—all wrapped up in a collaborative gallery walk.
Before we start with the writing part you know, as  well as I do that if we want our students to actually use new vocabulary, we’ve got to help them revise it first! So, for this activity, I’ve created something super fun: an interactive, editable roulette! Yes!!! You heard that right!!! I made it myself! Wow! Even after using AI for almost three years, my mind still can’t wrap around how much we can create without writing a single line of code.
REVISING VOCABULARY: warming-up
This time, ask for volunteers—no teams, no competition, just brave students ready to test themselves and have a bit of fun along the way! One student at a time sits facing away from the board where the roulette is displayed, while the rest of the class gives clues to help them guess the personality adjective. After five adjectives, it’s time for a new volunteer to take the hot seat.
IMPORTANT: Sometimes, and for no reason, the Remove button won’t work.  Just clic the Spin button again and paste a smile. Sorry about this!
THE WRITING ACTIVITY

Objective:

Students will write an informal email in groups of 3, giving advice about the person’s personality and whether the situation is a good idea, using
  • Personality adjectives
  • Advice structures: I think you should… / If I were you… / Why don’t you.. / What/How about…?

and following the structure for informal emails below

Preparation

Before the activity, I prepare:
  • A set of six situation cards (you can print them or display them digitally).
  • Large sheets of paper or whiteboards for each group.

The Situation Cards

Each group receives one of the following scenarios:
  1. Flatmate – A friend is looking for someone to live with.
  2. New Boss – A friend will work with your current boss.
  3. Travel Companion – A friend wants to travel with someone you know.
  4. Study Group – A classmate wants to form a study group.
  5. Romantic Date – A friend is dating someone you know.
  6. Team Project – A friend will collaborate on a project.

EMAIL PERSONALITY de cristina.cabal

Procedure:

Phase 1: Writing in groups

  1. Divide students into groups of 3.
  2. Each group receives a situation card.
  3. They collaboratively write an informal email followint the layout of an informal email on a whiteboard or large sheet of paper posted on the walls of the classroom

Phase 2: Peer Review

  1. Assign each group to review another group’s email (ensure they are not reviewing their own work).
  2. The groups’ task is to critically read the assigned text and identify potential errors (grammar, vocabulary, or spelling).
  3. Instruct students to undeline any errors they spot directly on the poster

Phase 3: Consolidation and Teacher’s Feedback

  • While students do an activity in their textbooks, correct the mistakes in their emails.(perhaps using a different colored marker), thereby validating or correcting the peer-underlined feedback.

Phase 4: Final review and gallery walk

  •  Instruct the original groups to return to their own email poster.
  • Have them review the peer-feedback (underlined) and the definitive corrections you provided.
  • Ask students to  circulate around the classroom reading all the emails posted on the walls

Tic Tac Toe Writing Challenge, Cristina’s Style

Writing, , , , , , , , ,

This project is a perfect example of what I love most: blending the latest AI tools with good old-fashioned participation and creativity. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it gives every student a voice.

In class, we rarely have enough time for long writing tasks. Between listening activities, speaking practice, and vocabulary reviews, written expression often gets pushed to “maybe next week.” But what if we could sneak writing practice into something short, fun, and completely engaging? That’s exactly what we did this week!

I am currently working on personality adjectives, so I decided to create a Tic-Tac-Toe game using the Canvas option in Gemini.

Canvas option in Gemini?  Yes, this is an option where you create an app using natural language — no programming degree required! I simply typed something like, “Make a tic-tac-toe game I can edit,” and voilà! In seconds, we had our very own interactive Tic-Tac-Toe app, ready to play and personalize. I have made it editable, so you can easily adapt it to your own classes.( Aside note: I give webinars teaching all about it 😆 )

In my case, each square on the grid contained an adjective like embarrassed, confident….. If these words mean nothing to you, click on the Edit button,change the words and click on Save.

 

Tic-Tac-Toe Writing Challenge – Classroom Instructions
  1. Divide the class into two teams: Noughts (O) and Crosses (X). Within each team, students work in pairs, since they’ll be writing together.
  2. The Noughts team starts. They, as a team, choose one square on the tic-tac-toe board.

3. All pairs (from both the Noughts and Crosses teams) must write one sentence using the word in that square.

    • The sentence must be at least 12 words long.
    • Give them about 1–1.5 minutes to write

4.Divide the classroom board (whiteboard) into two halves: O and X.

5. When time’s up, choose one student from each team at random to come to the board and write their sentence on their side of the board. Remember, though they might be Os or Xs, they have been writing their sentence in pairs.

6. Next, ask the rest of each team to read their sentence on the board carefully and look for errors.

    • If someone finds a mistake on their team’s  sentence, they stand up, underline it on the board, and wait for the teacher’s confirmation.
    • Once confirmed, he/she corrects the error.

7. The teacher checks both sentences, gives final corrections if needed, and decides which one is better.

    • The “winner” can be the most accurate, complex, or creative sentence.
    • The winning team claims that square on the Tic-Tac-Toe board

8. Then, it’s the Crosses’ turn to choose a square and repeat the process.

9. Continue until one team wins the tic-tac-toe game or the board is full.

My tip: If you’re looking for a way to turn writing into an active, competitive, and collaborative task, this game is a gem. It keeps every student involved and sneaks in grammar, vocabulary, and peer correction all at once.