THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF FREE TEXT MESSAGES (in the classroom)

This post is the second part of 'Activities using mobile phones in the classroom.'

I'm just not the type of person who can send five text messages in five seconds:)My  younger colleagues can text like in seconds [Today,I literally spent five minutes to send a simple text to my colleague -Nisa- and she texted me back approximately ten seconds later!].My students are a lot faster.

The thing I did not understand at first was why university students text their friends  instead of simply calling them?

Then what I realised was a completely OBVIOUS  answer

Telecommunication companies with their  'latest'offers (5000 free texts a day!)might be the reason why teenagers prefer texting to actually calling others.

So why not take advantage of this?

I used this activity after we covered 'Would you like...'

 Here are the steps:

• Ask students if they have free text messages (90% of your students will probably say 'YES')
• Pair your students 
•  Ask them to take out their mobiles
• Each pair chooses another pair and sends them a text
• Pairs start exchanging text messages.
• The activity goes on as long as your students want. (Sometimes they may end up exchanging five or six texts)

A sample student dialogue:

• Hello, we are going to the cinema on Tuesday with Canan. Would you like to come?
• oh, sorry. We can't come. We are meeting Ahmet on Tuesday.
• Okay, see you.
• Next time see you