Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books/8B/Lesson 11

Grade 8
FUN WITH ENGLISH 8B
Chapter 12
Anqing Foreign Language School
Lesson 11
Version 0.1

This chapter is about hosting a charity show and speeches, which I imagine will be difficult topics 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 charity shows and do some interesting charity show related activities.

Lesson Objectives

• The opening will go quickly enough to keep the students attention.
• 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.
• At least one of 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)

Greeting: USA What's up?

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

Textbook: Page 46 Let's get ready A & B

• I imagine these activities will be difficult for some students so do not draw them out for too long. Once a few minutes have passed or the majority of the students are finished start going over the answers.

Textbook: Page 47 Let's listen 1 A & B

• Split up the reading between the two of us teachers.
• Questions:
  • So, why are Tim and Nancy giving speeches?

Conversation: Charities

• What is a charity?
• Do you like charities?
• Who do charities help?
• Have you given money to charities?
• Do you think charities can help people?

Activity: Charity Interview

CN Interview = taifan

• Write interview on the board.
• Ask if they know that word?
• Write the questions on the board
  • Do you like charites?
  • Do you think charities can help people?
  • 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.

Ideas Game: How do you make a good charity?

Adapted from Mr. Brown's debates.

• Break the students up by gender or by row.
• Write "How do you make a good charity?" on the board.
• Tell the students they have to come up with different ideas for how to make a good charity.
• The team with the better ideas wins!
• Go back and forth writing down the reasons, at the end tally up the ideas and mark off ones that are erroneous to choose the winner.

Activity: Start a Charity

• OK, now we are going to make our own charity in Anqing.
• What problems are there in Anqing?
• How can we help those problems?
• What should we do?

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.

Lesson Review

12 May 2010 AM Period 1 Grade 8 Class 1

They were far more responsive than I expected.

1. Greeting and briefly chat about mother's day.
2. Grading Policy
   • Went more in depth into the A to F breakdown, including a short commentary on why we don't have an E.
3. Mr. Brown's Story
   • Students got quite excited listening to Mr. Brown's adventures.
4. Textbook: Let's get ready
   • Went alright, it is quite a difficult task and some students merely started at the page.
5. Textbook: Let's listen 1
   • Worked better than it would usually, because we were able to do the dialogue between the two of us.
6. Charity Chat

12 May 2010 AM Periods 2 and 4 Grade 8 Classes 3 and 2

• Class 2 is wild, but a lot of fun.
• Mr. Brown and I are starting to get into the groove of team-teaching.
• Neither class was particularly affected by the speeches, even some students who will likely get bad grades were really excited.

12 May 2010 Notes

What Could I Have Done Better?

• Gotten a longer conversation going about charities.

What Did I Do Well?

• Patient.

What Did I Learn?

• Going over grading policy does not necessarily mean anything to the students.

What Did My Students Get From The Lesson?

• Oral and aural practice and some critical thinking about charities.

Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved? Why?

• The opening will go quickly enough to keep the students attention.
  • No, opening did not grab anyone's attention.
• 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.
  • Went alright, this chapter is quite difficult for the students.
• At least one of the activities will be fun and get the students using English.
  • No, the activities we did got some chatting, but not with eachother.

How can I Improve the Lesson?

• Get the students speaking English to one another.

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)

Changelog

Version 0.1 6 May 2010