• Rule light - Prepared: discussion (group formats), role-played roles

• Rule light - Spontaneous: informal chat, role-play situations, stimulus-to-interaction

• Rule-heavy - Prepared: formal debate, role-play roles, prepared interactions

• Rule - heavy - Spontaneous: discussion (systems)

Role-played roles could vary. If it is a formal context (e.g. court), certain sentence structures or formalities are expected. However, it is not the case in an informal setting.

Additional activities

• Information gap tasks (Rule-light - Spontaneous): students (in pairs or small groups) have different pieces of information and have to collaborate together to complete a task (e.g., planning a trip, jigsaw puzzle).

• Discussion + Q&A (Rule-heavy -Prepared OR Spontaneous): students (in groups) prepare different topics to present and the audience (the rest of the class + teacher) interrupt with spontaneous questions.

• Story-building activity (Rule-light, spontaneous): the teacher starts a story with a guiding sentence and students collaboratively create a story, with each person adding one or two sentences.

I have tried the last one in the classroom and my students adored it because it promotes creativity, coherence, and fluency in the second language.

I like to begin with a warm-up where we review useful narrative connectors (e.g., suddenly, meanwhile, however, as a result, unexpectedly). Then, as a class, we do a quick brainstorm on the elements of a good story: coherence, creativity, surprise.

Each student is then given three pictures, placed face down so they cannot see them. The first student flips over one picture, shows it to the class, and begins the story using that image as inspiration. Each following student adds a sentence, continuing the story logically—or sometimes illogically, but still cohesively. For instance, if a student reveals an image of a hot-air balloon, they might say: “Suddenly, the characters noticed a hot-air balloon floating above them — a possible way to escape.”

In the second round, the students shuffle their pictures again, but this time they are allowed to look at them beforehand. After both rounds, we reflect on how the stories turned out differently and discuss what changes when students already know which images they’ll need to use.

To increase the challenge, I sometimes introduce extra commands such as:

• “Now the story must shift into a horror/comedy/sci-fi.”

• “Now you must include a betrayal, a discovery, or a disappearance.”

In this activity, students work together to reconstruct a fragmented story, which helps them practice speculation, narrative tenses, and discourse markers. The teacher begins by briefly reviewing useful narrative tenses, such as the past simple, past continuous, and past perfect, as well as sequencing expressions like at first, meanwhile, later on, and eventually. The story itself is presented in fragments—either through a recording played in parts, or by distributing mixed-up written slips. Students listen carefully or read the fragments and then, in small groups, share their notes and ideas to rebuild the story collaboratively. Since some details are missing or unclear, they are encouraged to fill in the gaps by speculating, using expressions such as perhaps, it could be that, or it seems likely. Once each group has reconstructed a coherent version, they retell their story orally to the class, making use of connectors and narrative flow to ensure cohesion. Finally, the class compares their versions with the original, reflecting on how they dealt with missing information, which language helped them maintain coherence, and how their interpretations differed.

This activity not only strengthens linguistic accuracy and fluency but also fosters creativity and collaborative problem-solving.

1. Rule-light, prepared: Discussion group formats

2. Rule-light, spontaneous: Discussion group formats (yes, here also depending on the setting and topic)

3. Prepared, rule-heavy: Discussion systems, prepared interactions

4. Spontaneous, rule-heavy: Stimulus-to-interaction

All in general, but I think some can be mixed up depending on what is being focused on and how important it is to speak freely or follow a set of rules. I haven't included the ones that were shown in the video.

Additional activities:

1. Picking up a casual topic folded on a piece of paper randomly. This is a rule-light and spontaneous activity that I have tried once in the past. Topics vary but include things that the students can talk about - family, hobbies, sports, movies, etc. It is very flexible and can be done in pairs or bigger groups. If there are students who struggle to speak or think on the spot, there could be supporting questions added to the piece of paper to encourage them.

2. Something I just found while researching some activities - Taboo Discussion.

   Students choose a topic and add a list of forbidden words that they cannot use while discussing (e.g. the topic is My School Day and the forbidden words are School, Teacher, Book, Test). They should discuss the topic for about 2 minutes without using the forbidden words, which encourages them to use synonyms, practice paraphrasing and be more creative. This would be a spontaneous and rule-heavy activity.

So here are the additional activities

English as Classroom Language

• (Rule light - Spontaneous)

I always utilise English as my classroom language rather than establishing a distinct language rule for English and our mother tongue, Indonesian. Because I believe it can help my pupils get the confidence to make mistakes, allowing them to learn spontaneously and constantly in their speaking.

T.E.A.C.H

Together
Explore &
Activate
Concepts in
Hands-on role-play

• (Rule-heavy - Prepared and Spontaneous)

I frequently employ role-playing to introduce new material. Students are divided into groups and then develop presentations based on the content provided by the teacher. Their group's mission is to do independent research on the material at hand. Once they've grasped the concept, the group develops simple learning tools, such as presentations, to share with their peers. When one group presents and takes the role of teacher, the others instantly become students. During the presentation, groups are also given a chance to offer their own ideas for discussing the topic. Some use word wordwalls, quizzes, or pre-made conventional games. This allows pupils to learn the material individually and indirectly through the jigsaw and inquiry technique. This allows pupils to avoid boredom and be more creative in their learning. I found this to be really beneficial.