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  • incognito84
  • Veteran

    • 145

    • September 01, 2008, 01:51:25 pm
    • Suwon, South Korea
High School "What Happened?" (Need Feedback)
« on: March 31, 2009, 11:19:51 am »
Here is a lesson plan I'm developing. I don't expect the kids to learn much from it but I decided to do it anyway in order to
make the idea of writing English sentences less terrifying. I figure the right balance of videos, examples, motivation and
candy will help them conquer some of their phobias about writing entire paragraphs in English.

___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ __

Lesson Plan

Slides 1-5: I introduce "what happened?" and explain how the 5 W's help you explain what happened. The 5 W's
part is very easy and they swallow it well. It's important to somehow bridge this explanation with the rest of the lesson
early on so the students aren't confused. Make sure you bait them with videos (yay!) and explain that you will applying
this to an assignment tied to them (boo!). I find this works for me and gets them more motivated.

Slides 6-11: Go through these slides quickly and make sure you write some notes regarding them on the black
board. It can be a little confusing, especially to the low level kids. I'm more than open to criticism here and I desperately
need ways to make this lesson plan an easier pill to swallow as a whole.

Show Mr. Bean at the Swimming Pool video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cmrMJul1g

Slides 13-22: I attached a simple .txt file to this presentaton. Bring it up and have the students answer the
questions with you. They will be very stimulated just having watched the video so it's really easy to introduce stuff like
"into or onto?" "get off or get on?" "how do you say that in past tense?" If you're a fast typer then they'll get a kick out of
that.

Show Kiwi! video and hand out the work sheet. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs

I actually bring up the document on the TV and walk them through what I want them to do. They usually get it and start writing midway through my explanation.

This lesson usually takes exactly 50 minutes if you do textbook work first. I find that I run out of time and find myself
staying in the classroom right up until their next period while they work on the worksheets.
___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ __

This lesson plan has worked very well so far, mainly thanks to the videos and candy, but I have the feeling that it's
 unfocused and could be a whole lot better. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to make this presentation clearer
and how to get it to work with lower level students better?

Any help / advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm kind of stepping out of bounds with this lesson plan as I rarely have the kids write full sentences with so much
freedom. As I said above, the whole point of this is to make them less afraid of doing just that. Most of my students this
year, too, are a lot better than the students last year in terms of ability so if I do this right I might be able to pull it off now
and in the future.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2009, 11:26:17 am by incognito84 »


Re: High School "What Happened?" (Need Feedback)
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2009, 09:48:06 am »
I'm going to try this lesson with my second grade HS class today. I'll let you know how it went.


Re: High School "What Happened?" (Need Feedback)
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2009, 07:42:04 am »
Your lesson worked great. I made a few changes to it and I used a second Mr. Bean video (the one of him changing at the beach. My students didn't care for Kiwi). They really enjoyed the lesson and were quite active in participating. It was a welcome change. ^^


  • incognito84
  • Veteran

    • 145

    • September 01, 2008, 01:51:25 pm
    • Suwon, South Korea
Re: High School "What Happened?" (Need Feedback)
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2009, 09:08:34 am »
Yeah, I thought the Kiwi video was perfect because I used it during one of my camps and the more advanced students loved it. I was surprised to hear that the lower students at my school didn't understand the concept of the video. I had already used Mr. Bean a few weeks ago and I was a little sick when I was using the lesson plan, so I didn't end up changing it. I will change it in the future though, I'll probably use the same video as you.

Thanks for the feedback :)


Re: High School "What Happened?" (Need Feedback)
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2009, 01:41:26 pm »
I was thinking of using Whose Line Is It Anyways but I think it's way too advanced for any of my students.