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Level 2: Pre-Intermediate >> Speaking and Conversation Materials/Discussion Starters >> The first sentence of a story is given and students take it in turns to continue the story which swings from "fortunately" to "unfortunately".

Fortunately, Unfortunately

This is quite an old story-chain idea which gets students speaking well.

The idea is to give students the first line of a story:

I lost my job yesterday

The next student must begin the next line with the word "fortunately".

Fortunately, I never liked it.

The following student must then begin the next line with the word "unfortunately" and on it goes until the story becomes too long or the students bore of it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any money now.

Suggestions:

• This can be used to practise certain grammatical structures such as past simple or future. Just change the first line accordingly.
• To make the activity more difficult, have the students repeat ALL of the story and not just their piece.