Would you believe that fūr, Latin for “thief,” is among the most compelling words used in class? The moment a student spontaneously yells out that word, there’s an immediate conflict—a problem to solve. This is gold for comprehension-based and communicative language teaching (CCLT), especially for collaborative storytelling/storyasking!

I was looking at the list of super clear cognates, now over 500, and noticed how a few verbs would really support the next fūr compelling diversion (i.e. unexpected student-driven moments the class finds interesting that teachers don’t plan for, yet should roll with)! From there, I searched for other words and phrases to create a pack of related words to have on hand for students to use during the interaction (e.g. placed on the whiteboard tray). In a way, these packs are like situational mini rejoinder sets. Here’s the first pack, which you can download and print on 11×17.