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.
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Lesson PlanSlides 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=sdUUx5FdySsI 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.
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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.