Students of the responsible class come to the site of the OPEN ECA a little earlier than other participants, with the prepared materials in hand to guide the formation of groups. When groups are formed, these group leaders trigger discussions on the prepared topics. During the interaction they listen attentively to the participants and argue enthusiastically with them. Authentic and prepared materials help all the participants carry on the talk when they sometimes feel there is nothing to say. When people from outside of the college join a group, they often add real life experiences and professional knowledge into the discussion and make it livelier.
Teachers move around the groups, asking questions and helping students solve some problems.
As we learn from experience, we should keep a balance. Writers in this stage have the complete freedom in choosing writing topics and can engage in descriptive, narrative, expository, or argumentative writing, based on the requirements of the topics. They often write in response to an issue in Open ECA for the class publication. Students usually have no difficulty in producing a draft of several pages within this stage because they have the motivation to put their ideas on paper and they don't have to worry so much about form and grades. The whole class breaks into small groups, each consisting of four students.