This week we have a very inspiring blog post written by long term, Hands Up Project volunteer in Beit Hanoun Prep Girls UNRWA School Gaza, Rinan Jamal. Rinan joined us for last Saturday's SaturPLAY live together with some of her brilliant students.

One thing about chanting is that is encourages use of connected speech: it challenges learners to speak in chunks, rather than in isolated words. This is a central idea of the Lexical Approach. When chanting words flow into each other, and pauses occur naturally between chunks of language, rather than after each word (as often occurs in the speech of beginners).

Last week I was looking at how talking with children about the pictures they've drawn can be a useful thing to do in a classroom. This week I want to explore a slightly more structured activity which works with this idea.The picture dictation has become a classic language teaching activity. I can't remember where I first heard about but I've been using it ever since I first started teaching more than 25 years ago.