As this lesson talks about various objects around the world that symbolize good luck or bad luck, I decided to incorporate superstitions in my warm-up and use it to help the students practice "I'm thinking of ___ing..." Here were the steps:
1. Introduce the topic of the lesson on p. 149. What does does the four leaf clover represent in many cultures? This will be a segue into the PPT intro slide.
2. Show the PPT intro slide with the black cat. Ask, "What is a superstition?" In some cultures, black cats are good luck, in others they're bad luck.
3. Introduce the short YouTube animation short "Superstition." Before showing it ask the students to spot what they think the superstitions are.
4. After the video, ask the students what superstitions they noticed and write their responses on the board. Afterwards, show slides 2-8 to further explain the superstitions that were in the video. I wanted to make the lesson more multicultural instead of just doing a Korea vs. U.S.A. thing, so I showed the flags of various countries that have these superstitions.
5. Slide 9 will ask the students to think of superstitions in Korea. I gave each group a half sheet of paper and asked them to write down one good luck superstition in Korea and one bad luck superstition for a time frame of 3 minutes. Afterwards, I asked them to read their superstitions together to earn a team point.
6. After sharing their superstitions and collecting their papers, I moved to slide 10 to introduce the key expression, "I'm thinking of __ing..." Check their understanding of the expression.
7. Slide 11 is a full sample sentence that incorporates the superstition theme.
8. Slide 12: Divide the class in half (A team, B team). The A Team will read the "I'm thinking of__ing..." sentence at the top, while the B team will follow up with either, "That's a good idea. It's good luck," or "That's a bad idea. It's bad luck." From slides 13-18 they will practice this. On slide 16, the A Team and B Team will switch their speaking roles for the remaining slides.
9. After they've practiced speaking, you can move on to the book.
I will attach the PPT I used and the YouTube animation short. This went really well and the students enjoyed the video and sharing superstitions in their culture. When they did #3 on page 151, I had them add a fourth gift of their choice as they practiced the sample dialogue. After practicing with their partner, they shared their role plays. The students liked being able to make their own response instead of just using what was in the book. It was also educational for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZPMe2efsDA
