I'm lucky to have some free time at the end of the year after we finished our textbooks. So, I talked with my teacher in order to have students do something fun. The students have been super receptive to this and enjoy doing it a lot.
First, introduce the idea of combining two essays to make a conversation (In the powerpoint)
Form groups of 4-6 students and give them about 10-15 minutes to brainstorm in Japanese before starting to write in English.
I give them a challenge to have a minimum of 10 sentences and 4 grammar points we covered in the year. You can change these numbers depending on the skill level of your class
In a 1 hour class, half my students finished writing. In the second hour, students finished writing, practiced writing and made props. Everyone should record and be finished in the third hour. If they finish early, I have a worksheet for them.
Due to the nature of recording on their tablets, I spend my free periods using the subtitle feature on Microsoft Powerpoint to make subtitles for each group's video. This isn't necessary, but I found it increased their understanding greatly.
Then, in the fourth hour class, we watch all the videos together and students get to give feedback to their peers and vote on which one they think is the best. (Winners get nice stickers haha)
For １年 students, I had them choose 1 of the 3 'Our Projects' in the textbook.
For 2年 students, I had them choose from the Our Projects, or a couple of the other worksheets we've done. (Winter vs summer discussion or practice essay topics - see my essay activity)
I haven't done this with 3年 students since they usually have high school exams, but I would likely give them the same options, including activities from the Steps worksheets. I think this can be easily adapted to any textbook.
Below is the worksheet I use for my 2年 students grammar points, and my 1年 powerpoint. I'll update the other grades as I finish polishing them. This is my second year doing this activity. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Great idea !!!! Nice job and thank you for all your hard work and effort :)