Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books/7B/Lesson 11

Grade 7
牛津初中英语·同步听力(七下) FUN WITH ENGLISH 7B
Chapter 10 Meeting an alien
Anqing Foreign Language School
Lesson 11
Version 0.21

This chapter is about aliens, which should be a good topic for discussion. This week will be special, my colleague Mr. Brown and I will be teaching together. A good portion of the lesson will be spent by Mr. Brown recounting his recent adventure to the South of China. With the time left hopefully we can chat about aliens and do some interesting alien related activities.

Lesson Objectives

The opening will draw the student's attention and generate a short chat about Mother's day.
Mr. Brown's story will grab the student's attention and go on for an extended period.
The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
We will have a discussion about aliens that will involve the majority of the students.
The activities will be fun and get the students using English.

Lesson Plan

Before Class Starts

If time, walk around and mingle with the students before the bell rings. (King)
Set up the computer to have a discussion about grades.

Greeting: USA What's up?

Yo! What's up? Not much, you? Not much.

Opening: Mother's Day

What day was it last Sunday?
Do you like Mother's Day?
Is Mother's Day important?
Why do we have Mother's Day?
What did you do on Mother's Day?
- What did you do on Mother's Day Mr. Brown?

Explanation: Class Grading Policy

First go through the A to F scale in English and explain that 50% of their grade comes from tests and the other half from in class performance.
Put the Chinese explanation up on the screen and have the students read it out loud so they all understand.

Story: Mr. Brown's Adventure

Textbook: Page 38 Let's get ready A & B

Textbook: Page 40 Let's listen 2 A

Conversation: Aliens

Do you believe in aliens? Why?
Do you think aliens are friendly?
Do you want to meet an alien?
Have you ever travelled on a UFO?
Do aliens like humans?
What do aliens look like?

Activity: Aliens Interview

CN Interview = taifan

Write interview on the board.
Ask if they know that word?
Write the questions on the board
- Do you like aliens?
- Do you think aliens can help humans?
- Why?
Bring up a student volunteer and interview one another in front of the class.
Now please interview the people sitting next to you, in English!
Give them a minute or three, walk around and help troubled groups.
Afterwards ask for volunteers to come to the front of class and do the interview.

Extra Time

Debate: Are aliens friendly?

Adapted from Mr. Brown's debates.

Break the students up by gender or by row.
Write "Are aliens friendly?" on the board.
Tell one side they have to have reasons for "yes" and another they have to have reasons for "no".
The team with the better argument wins!
Go back and forth writing down the reasons, at the end tally up the reasons and mark off ones that are erroneous to choose the winner.

Activity: Alien Visitor

(Johnson)

Explain that one of the teachers is an English speaking alien whose come to our town. Then ask quesitons like: "What is this?" A: "Book." "What do you do with a book?" A: "Read it." "What is reading?" and so on

Game: Draw an Alien

Make two teams by gender or row.
Choose two students from each team.
Tell them they have to draw an alien.
Give them two or three minutes.

Lesson Review

May 11th and 12th reviews were written about version 0.1.
May 13th reviews were written about version 0.2

11 May 2010 AM Period 4 Grade 7 Class 3

Opening: Unsure about what to do because I have not gone over “Yo! What's up?” with a lot of these students.
- End up doing “Good morning! How are you?” and that just works alright, especially because I'm only half into it.
Chat About Mother's Day: What day was Sunday? Did you do anything for your mother?
- Takes up two or three minutes. Should have done it last week, but better to talk about it a little than not at all.
Grades
- Start going over in English and write A – F on the board then explain how if you have a goo test grade, but poor in-class grade your overall grade will be just so-so and so on. All the students in this class seemed to understand and when they were reading the Chinese on the board they got excited, which was not the desired effect, but so be it.
Mr. Brown's Adventure Story
- Some students got especially excited today.
Chapter 10 Let's get ready A+B, Let's listen 2 A+B
- All went alright. For let's listen I asked a lot of questions in between quesitons about the pictures in the book and if they believed in aliens and so on.
Are aliens real? Reasons Game
- Wrote are aliens real? on a word document, then went back and forth having boys and then girls answer and give answers yes, no or maybe and include reasons. Actually went well.

How can I improve the lesson?

Perhaps try Let's listen 1 instead of 2.

12 May 2010 PM Period 1 Grade 7 Class 11

Greeting & Mom's Day
- Mom's day conversations have never gone especially great, I always feel like I'm pushing and they are not especially interested. Mr. Brown has a bit of a wild story that the students like, though. Should I have something also wild or am I working well as a straight man?
Mr. Brown's Adventure Story
- I have been trying to helps sometimes by jumping in, but I do not believe that is an especially good tactic. It seems to distract the students, may be better just to let him hold the floor.
Textbook
- I'm doing a good job of aksing a lot of questions around the textbook questions.
Are aliens real? Conversation with a Word Document
- Started with is "Mr. Danoff an alien?" because Mr. Brown had been making some jokes about that. It was a little funny, but at the same time it not get much of a response.
- I was not feeling 100% and the series of questions I asked the students this time really did not get a lot of responses.

Didn't do grades with this group and I think its fine, they are wonderful and we do not need to use any sort of scare tactics to get them involved.

12 May 2010 PM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 10

Students were really attentive, listening and getting involved with the Mother's day chat, Mr. Brown's adventure story and about their grades.
Following the textbook I experimented trying a game from another local teacher (Johnson] where you act as an alien visiting Earth then walk around the room, asking very basic questions like "What is this?" A: "Book." "What do you do with a book?" A: "Read it." "What is reading?" and so on

12 May 2010 Notes

What Could I Have Done Better?

Had a better series of questions lined up about the Aliens to get them chatting.

What Did I Do Well?

Asked a lot of questions around the textbook questions during the textbook activities.

What Did I Learn?

When team-teaching sometimes its better to let the other person solely have the stage for a while.

What Did My Students Get From The Lesson?

Oral/aural practice, learned about Mr. Brown's adventure and had some fun chatting about aliens.

Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved? Why?

The opening will go quickly enough to keep the students attention.
- One class yes, one class no, the opening really isn't that great.
Mr. Brown's story will grab the student's attention and go on for an extended period.
- Yes.
The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
- Yes, this is a really good chapter from the textbook.
We will have a discussion about aliens that will involve the majority of the students.
- No, only a few kids got involved.
The activities will be fun and get the students using English.
- No, the activities we did only got one or two students speaking English at a time, as opposed to many of them.

How can I Improve the Lesson?

Consider re-working the opening.

13 May 2010 PM Period 1 Grade 7 Class 8

Opening on Mother's Day
- Started asking "Girls, if you were mothers, what would you want your children to do for you on mother's day?" awkward question that did not get a lot of responses. I quickly moved on.
Recounting of Mr. Brown's Adventure
- His telling of it has improved with each lesson and currently he does a real good job mixing between the photo slides and drawing on the blackboard.
Let's get ready
Let's listen 2A
Alien Interview
- Students did an alright job speaking with eachother, only unfortunate part was there were no volunteers afterwards to perform in front of the class, kids I selected did a fabulous job.
Competetive Hangman

13 May 2010 Notes

What Could I Have Done Better?

Asked the right questions to get a genuine chat about mother's day going.

What Did I Do Well?

Got the students somewhat speaking English to one another.

What Did I Learn?

Sometimes it is better to not draw discussions out so far, keeping them shorter and a quick pace for class can be beneficial.

What Did My Students Get From The Lesson?

Oral and aural practice.

Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved? Why?

The opening will draw the student's attention.
- Not really.
Mr. Brown's story will grab the student's attention and go on for an extended period.
- Yes
The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
- Yes, quite quickly.
We will have a discussion about aliens that will involve the majority of the students.
- Skipped the discussion.
The activities will be fun and get the students using English.
- Moderately successful.

How can I Improve the Lesson?

Ask the right questions to get a genuine chat about mother's day going.

Appendix

Acknowledgments

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.

References

I get many ideas from Stuart Brown. (Mr. Brown).
Marjorie King provided some feedback on my last lessons, that was built into this lesson. (King)
I got the alien visitor activity idea from Johnson. (Johnson)

Changelog

Version 0.21 13 May 2010

Re-worded the first lesson objective.
Added some mother's day questions.
Added the class grading policy section.

Version 0.2 12 May 2010

Changed the objectives
Added mother's day opening
removed let's listen 1 b and 3b, 2 a is enough
moved the drawing game to extra time
added the alien visitor activity

Version 0.1 6 May 2010

Appendix

Acknowledgments

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.

References

I get many ideas from Stuart Brown. (Mr. Brown).
Marjorie King provided some feedback on my last lessons, that was built into this lesson. (King)
I got the alien visitor activity idea from Johnson. (Johnson)

Changelog

Version 0.2 12 May 2010

Changed the objectives
Added mother's day opening
removed let's listen 1 b and 3b, 2 a is enough
moved the drawing game to extra time
added the alien visitor activity

0.1 6 May 2010