At our school, we have an English Teacher Training program with an equivalent of TESL Master degree option. In that program, course modules such as Language Pedagogy, Language Didactics, Linguistics, Methodology, The Learner As A Potential Achiever, Media and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Research Methods and Research Thesis Writing, etc. are offered.

We also insist that the student do a teaching practicum of at least 120 hours of supervised teaching in class. Before, the professor takes his teacher trainees to classes for teaching observation with teaching done by experienced teachers. Later, we discuss the performance. This, we call "hospitation". Later, the teacher trainee does some practical teaching him/herself under the guidance of an experienced teacher and/or his/her professor. This, we call "observed teaching assignments".

One day, we had such an occasion of "obeserved teaching assigment" to teach a class of intermediate to advanced ESL students in Essay Writing. I told the teacher trainee to give an essay writing assignment with a free choice of the topic but that it had to be in the area "A Story Full of Lies". This would require the student make use of his fantasy and sense of humor in the hope to motivate them doing some good work on it and overcoming their hesitations (being afraid to make mistakes, etc.). This assignment was structured and organised in such a way that each week one of the students was given an assignment to prepare such a story at home for reading it aloud next week in class. Each time it was another student given such an assignment. After the story was read in class by the student, all other students were asked to work in pairs and to prepare statements why certain things in the story read were a lie and what were the criteria to decide that it was a lie.

In turn, we had some wonderful and also very funny inputs from students - for example, a fictional encounter and discussion between Tony Blair (ex-UK Prime Minister) and the Monster of Loch Ness, an "explanation" why certain ladies (in the student enrollment department at that (not our) school, disliked by them for their frequent rudeness and incompetence - that was a state-run school where many of the staff tried to intimidate these students!) had given birth to crocodiles, a "Private Eye" discovering the treasures of King Arthur, etc.

The students were English majors in their first year at college leading to a Bachelor degree. Age was between 18 and 21 in a Western setting with a reasonable acquaintance of Western culture, political settings, etc. Later, after finalising the project and when evaluating it (taking into account student reactions and feedback), we found that this was one of the ways to stimulate students at that level causing them to make use of their fantasy and humor and topics they were interested in. However, we felt it was inappropriate to use such an approach with more "serious", advanced students of the second or third year. Another "shortcoming" felt by some was that the course did not entirely focus on writing alone but included some oral interaction on "discovering the lies" which should better form part of a Conversation Course.

Perhaps, this may cause some of you to do the same in a writing class - with topics depending on the English level of your students, their specific cultural settings and sense of humor.