Yesterday I started with simple questions to write a story. Where are we?
Who’s there and what are their names? What are they doing? Why are they
doing it? and so on.
As they come up with answers (I didn’t permit English but you might want to
initially), I just write them on the board until we have a story of some 16
sentences or so.
By having the students come up with the sentences, you restrict the
vocabulary. In my case, I didn’t have to check anything but it was a close
call with a couple of words. Fortunately, I guessed right. But there’s
nothing wrong with jotting the word on the board in English for the time
being. That’s only if you let them suggest items in English.
I had the story end at a point where it needed an ending and their homework
was to write an ending.
So one way to control the vocab is to let the students suggest the content
of a story.