Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books/7B/Lesson 8

牛津初中英语·同步听力(七下) FUN WITH ENGLISH 7B Chapter 7: Getting There Anqing Foreign Language School Grade 7 Lesson 8 Version 0.2

This chapter focuses on transportation. In this lesson plan I hope to complete a few good textbook activities quickly and spend majority of the time with the students interviewing one another about their thoughts on transportation. The lesson finishes with a map based game that should be a fun way for students to use their English.

Lesson Objectives

 * The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
 * The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
 * Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
 * The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.

Lesson Plan
Before Class Starts
 * If time, walk around and mingle with the students before the bell rings. (King)

Greeting: Introduce What's the craic?
 * What's the craic is used in Ireland as a way to say "How are you?" [1]
 * The responses are the same as "How are you?"

Opening: Riddle & Questions
 * Share a simple riddle with the students.
 * Do you have any questions for me?
 * What do you think of our lessons? How can we make our lessons better? (King)

Textbook: Page 26 Let's get ready A
 * Before going over the answers, read out and practice the pronunciation of all the words.
 * Have you seen any of these signs in Anqing?

Textbook: Page 26 Let's get ready B
 * Make sure they read out the full answer.
 * After each answer have all of them listen and repeat after me.

Textbook: Page 27 Let's listen 1 B Tapescript Page 82
 * Read slowly twice.

Textbook: Page 28 Let's listen 2 A Tapescript Page 82
 * First time read at my normal speaking speed.

Activity: Transportation Interview[CN Transportation = Yùnshū Interview = Fǎngwèn]
 * Now we are going to interview a friend about transportation.
 * Please ask them these questions and write down the answers. Please only speak in English.
 * Questions: [Write on the board]
 * What types of transportation do you like?
 * What types of transportation are good for the environment? Why?
 * What types of transportation are bad for the environment? Why?
 * Go around class helping individual groups. Don't spend too, too long on the activity.
 * At the end ask two to three groups if they would like to share with the class?

Game: Dizzy Maps
 * Have two similar maps with about four to five buildings drawn on the board.
 * Make two teams.
 * Ask for volunteers, or choose participants.
 * Bring them to the front of the classroom.
 * Cover their eyes with a shirt or tie or something.
 * Spin them around four times.
 * Give them a piece of chalk and have their classmates guide them to their destination. The first one to arrive wins.

Maybe Also Try
Activity: Map and Directions (For classes with a high level and a patient attitude.)
 * OK, now I want you to work in pairs.
 * Create a map, with three buildings.
 * Grocery Store
 * Bank
 * School
 * and five roads.
 * Danoff Road
 * Brown Street
 * English Avenue
 * Fuller Lane
 * Elton John Boulevard
 * You have 2 minutes, go!
 * Time is up, now I want you to give your map to a new group.
 * New group, please write down the directions for how to go from the Bank to the School to the grocery store.

Textbook: Page 29 Let's listen 2 A Tapescript Page 82 (Maybe)

Extra Time
Game: Number of Letters? (Mr. Brown)
 * Make two teams.
 * Tell them to make a word that begins with one letter, e.g. D, and has 6 letters.
 * Go back and forth between the teams making the words.

Activity: The Man in The Mirror Slideshow"
 * Teach the song and have the students sing along with you and Michael.

20 Apr 2010 AM Period 4 Grade 7 Class 3

 * Took a while to go over "What's the craic?".
 * They knew what Ireland is, I don't think they really got it.
 * Forgot to ask them riddles.
 * Took a while after that to get them to move into their new seats.
 * Those were moderately successful. One low level boy instead of being distracted by the window now chats with a friend.
 * It is nice having them all in my sight line at all times.
 * Having them repeat all the words in the textbook back to me lost their interest after a bit.
 * They were very distracted and chatty for the whole lesson.
 * The interview activity only worked well for advanced students. Everyone else was lost or completely uninterested.
 * I asked a girl for her suggestions. She said I should make the students be quiet.

Next Week
 * Try the interview activitiy again.
 * Consider seperating certain groups.
 * One student suggested I ask the monitor for help.

20 Apr 2010 Day in Review
What Could I Have Done Better?
 * Gotten the classes attention.

What Did I Do Well? What Did I Learn? What Did My Students Get From The Lesson? Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved? How can I Improve the Lesson?
 * Not lose my temper.
 * New activities require VERY thorough explnations.
 * Oral / aural practice, some new vocabulary, and a little thinking about transportation.
 * The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
 * Nope.
 * The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
 * No.
 * Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
 * No.
 * The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.
 * No time.
 * Had some sort of computer display about "What's the craic?"
 * Had some sort of computer display about the interview activity.

21 Apr 2010 PM Period 1 Grade 7 Class 11

 * Didn't do "What's the craic?"
 * Following the greeting we talked for a little about the weather. I explained how I am more comfortable inside than outside, so I like the rain because then I do not have to feel bad about going outside.
 * The riddle went well. Wrote their answers on the board. One boy got it pretty quick.
 * After that I answered their questions as always they have a good amount. Most interesting topic we got to today was the "Egyptian Dance".
 * Their suggestions for making our class better:
 * study
 * learn
 * clean
 * write homework
 * play games
 * Only did Let's get ready  from the textbook. Went over the pronunciation of the words before I had them give me the answers. It'd probably be good to do it before they even begin answering the questions.
 * As they gave the answers, we spent a long time chatting about the different road signs and I told a story about when I got busted for speeding while I was in Japan.
 * Interview activity took a really long time to explain.
 * May be better to:
 * Start by asking what's an interview. Give an example of a reporter and President Obama.
 * Have the questions written beforehand [while they are doing let's get ready] or written on the computer screen.
 * Maybe they do not have to write down the answers?
 * The boy and the girl who had the spat last week were fine.

Next Week
 * Interview activity again.
 * Talk about the Egyptian dance? Maybe this: How to Perform Modern Egyptian Dance Part 1, on 5min dot com.
 * Another riddle.

21 Apr 2010 PM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 10

 * Lesson began quite enthusiastically.
 * Yo! / What's up? went very well.
 * Introduced What's the craic? which I believe went OK. Somewhat difficult for them and I'm not quite sure how to explain it.
 * Answered a few of their questions, then asked:
 * Do you like our class? Why? [relaxing / fun ...] How can we make our class better?
 * Suggestions:
 * play cloudy tree a game that has something to do with a train and is usually played in a park
 * sing Chinese or English songs
 * listen to music
 * watch anime
 * cartoon films
 * be quiet
 * Then did the riddle, but by this point I had gone too long or their attention had waned. Not many of them were with me, so the riddle did not work so well.
 * Some kind of special time is there at the beginning of a lesson, where they are with me and paying attention but if I'm only able to connect with a few or them or something else like that I can lose them.
 * Did Let's get ready. I tried going over the vocabulary before we began, but that did not really work. Covering the vocabulary before we got deeply into the answers is helpful.
 * Spent the last fifteen minutes on the interviews. Using the method I suggested above helped, but still I have to walk around and work with most pairs individually before any progress can be made.
 * Might be better to try letting them make the pairs themselves.
 * Nice to see multiple groups of students volunteer themselves to participate.
 * Might also be nice to have some sort of prop microphone.
 * Spent the last minute and a half teaching them the chorus to my favorite Otis Redding song.
 * Throughout class a few boys were tossing stuff around the room, which was annoying.

Next Week
 * That one student's test is from Mr. Brown's class.
 * Find out what Cloudy Tree is.
 * Do the interview activity again.

21 Apr 2010 Day in Review
What Could I Have Done Better? What Did I Do Well? What Did I Learn? What Did My Students Get From The Lesson? Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved? How can I Improve the Lesson?
 * Explained the interview activity in a way that did not take up fifteen minutes.
 * Talked for virtually the entire period.
 * New activities require VERY thorough explnations.
 * Oral / aural practice, some new vocabulary, and practice giving an interview to their classmates.
 * The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
 * Yes.
 * The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
 * Yes.
 * Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
 * No.
 * The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.
 * No time.
 * Improve the instructions for the interview activity.

22 Apr 2010 PM Period 2 Grade 7 Class 8

 * Kept my explanation of "What's the craic?" simple and the students seemed to grasp the concept.
 * Asked them a slightly different riddle, which one boy suprised me by getting quickly.
 * Re-worded how I asked for their feedback.
 * Asked first how can I improve?
 * Funny
 * Interesting things
 * Watch film every class
 * Joke
 * Listen to music
 * You know a lot about computer. Use more computer, we like those lessons.
 * Asked second, how can we improve?
 * Day, day up - good, good study
 * Good co-operation
 * Speak more English
 * Be active
 * Be quiet
 * Be interesting
 * They then had tons of questions, which took up most of the lesson time.
 * Went through Let's get ready slowly, focusing on each answer.
 * One girl who doesn't ususally talk got an answer wrong. She sat down and seemed quite disappointed. I called on her again for the next answer and then told her great job! This technique helps some shy students.
 * Did not have enough time for the interview activity.

Next Week
 * One boy asked to play baskeball after school. I declined because of other commitments. If possible try to play after the next class.

23 Apr 2010 AM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 7

 * Began with "What's the craic?" kept it simple and it kept their interest.
 * Next went with the story of Michael Jordan being cut from his high school team. They were excited by the idea of the story but the one I told and/or the way I told it did not elicit much excitement.
 * Aksed a riddle but didn't give them the answer.
 * Then I asked them if they had any questions followed by suggestions.
 * They had some good ideas:
 * Spent a long time talking about the textbook answers. Going through each one slowly and methodically.
 * Bell rang before we did anything else, but it turned out to be quite fun.
 * Of course one of the best students came up afterwards and infromed me the lesson was boring, because "we didn't play any interesting games."

Next Week
 * What's the craic?
 * Answer to riddle about University.

23 Apr 2010 AM Period 4 Grade 7 Class 9

 * Observed by three teachers.
 * After greeting my students I had them all turn around and say hi to the observing teachers. I then aksed my students if it was OK for the teachers to watch. They were silent so I just said "OK!!!"
 * Suggestions to improve class.
 * Changes for me
 * play games [also wrote "no we are not children" though i don't recall why]
 * watch films / cartoon / videos
 * talk about some goo things
 * history of the NBA
 * story of Anqing Foreign Language School
 * Changes for them
 * be quiet
 * learn
 * exciting
 * match
 * sing songs
 * Kids behaved far better than usual but kept their energy.
 * Skipped the MJ story saving time instead for the map game.
 * Did the riddle which got a lot of kids thinking and one bright girl got the answer.
 * Were able to get through a lot of the textbook quickly.
 * Finished class with the map game which went far better because I brought in ties for the kids. Of course once we started the competetive aspect it went wild with all of them rushing to the board.
 * Had to calm it down.

Next Week
 * Perhaps map game again since they now know it.

23 Apr 2010 PM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 2

 * Spent the first 15 minutes or solving a problem.
 * An alien had come to Anqing [idea from Johnson] and they had to explain to the alien how eathlings live, but the alien could only speak English.
 * Went over food / clothes / friends asking Why? How? and What? for each.
 * Pushed it a little too far. A lot of students lost interest by that point.
 * Then went into the riddle and questions for me? routine.
 * Went through the textbook, but not as thorughly as possible [in terms of me expanding upon answers], because I wanted to save time to play the dizzy maps game at the end.
 * Before we started I asked for a volunteer, but they did not know what the word meant.
 * Just had one student go and I added things like "No entry"

Next Week
 * One girl was ready to go at the end of the lesson, but the bell rung. Have her play next class.
 * Another girl wanted to know my Chinese name. Have it ready for her.

Acknowledgments

 * Ideas I got from Stuart Brown, I acknowledged with (Mr. Brown).
 * I would like to thank all the 7th and 8th grade classes at Anqing Foreign Language School who had this lesson for their participation and feedback. I would also like to thank the Anqing Foreign Language School for allowing me to teach there.
 * Marjorie King provided some feedback on my last lessons, that was built into this lesson. (King)

Changelog
Version 0.2 19 Apr 2010
 * Added the dizzy maps game and the interview activity.
 * Dropped the transport discussion.
 * Added the maybe also try section.

Version 0.1 17 Apr 2010