I should probably include a disclaimer with this lesson - I don't actually "teach" English, my school (high school) has requested that I just give the students a "positive English experience." So basically, I take stuff they already know (or SHOULD already know) and make lessons that reinforce or expand it, with a little pop culture sprinkled on top.
I started out with Justin Bieber's "Love Me" as a cloze activity and then launched into a brief review of imperatives - what they are, different uses of them, etc. After we established what they were, we found all the imperatives in the song and labeled them as either commands or requests. (At this point I told them we would watch the music video at the end of the lesson, if they participated. -
)
After that, we went over some common imperative phrases and uses of them in the PPT and they brainstormed some more that they had heard before, like "Shut up!" and "Get out!"
Then we reviewed the different uses for imperatives and focused on their use for giving instructions. I gave them some physical instructions like, "Stand up", "Sit down", "Jump", "Move to your left", etc. and then introduced the Cupid Shuffle. I had the instructions listed on a power point slide and the class read them aloud while I followed their commands. After a quick runthrough, I made them all stand up and try it and showed them the "instructional video" on youtube - (
) Finally, I put on the real song (
) and had them try it. (I skipped ahead in the song to about 1:40 - He starts calling out the steps at about 2:00) Some classes didn't really get into the dance, but some really did and had a great time.
After the Cupid Shuffle, we made a list of different physical moves: step to the right/left/forward/back, jump, turn, spin, sway, slide, shake (your head, hips, hands, etc) put your hands up. Then each group made a list of 6 - 10 different moves to make a new dance for the class. It took too much time for them to each come up and present to the class (and many were too shy to do it), but I found they got a much bigger kick out of just making me do it, so in the end, most of the groups just shouted out their list of commands (and a few of them did them with me as they shouted) and I tried my best to do them.
Not heaps of learning going on, but most of the classes at least enjoyed the Biebs and making me do ridiculous dance moves. A few classes missed this lesson last week because of listening tests last week, but had heard about it and requested that I do it with them this week. It also lead nicely into an actual lesson involving imperatives for giving directions this week.
Can't locate the PPT at the moment, but I will post it when I do.
