LESSON PLAN
Topic: Crazy Ideas
Group: The assumed group is an upper intermediate adult class of about 10-15 Vietnamese students
Lesson length: approximately 45 minutes
Curriculum connection: This is intended for a general English class where there is no curriculum that must be strictly adhered to. This represents the prevailing situation when teaching adult Vietnamese students in Hanoi. The connection is therefore loose and related to such courses general aims of trying to improve general English but particularly communicative competence. This lesson achieves this by incorporating the teaching of reading comprehension skills with the discussion of an interesting and engaging topic.
Language focus: Reading
Main aim (communicative or linguistic): comprehension of a written text and the ability to discuss its content
Subsidiary aims:
- practice reading skills
- have a discussion with peers about what was read
Learner outcomes: By the end of the class, learners will have:
- practiced reading for gist so as to understand the main ideas of a written text
- practiced predicting text content based on visual clues derived from the text
- practiced guessing the meanings of unknown words from context
- practiced using a dictionary to look up unknown words
- discussed what they have read by paraphrasing the main ideas and meanings of unknown words they looked up
- optional extension task: learners can understand and use the following structures in conversation to talk about their own and others future plans:
Ø make someone’s mind up
Ø on reflection/to reflect
Ø think/ don't think straight
Ø go through someone’s mind
Ø realise something (I'm going to realise my plan by...)
Relevant prior learning/knowledge: Students will need to be of at least upper intermediate proficiency in English to comprehend this text. They'll also need to have a good grasp of reported and direct speech given this is an interview style newspaper article.
Teacher preparation and resources:
- print 8 copies of section A and 8 copies of section B of the reading
- print 16 copies of glossary
- print the 3 pictures to be shown to the class for discussion at the beginning of the lesson
- large LCD screen with computer connection cable (for discussing parts of the reading with the class and presenting key grammatical structures in the text)
- word document with grammatical structures to be practiced for extension activity
______
Lesson Procedure
Learning objectiveLearners should be able to: / Procedure / Learning Outcome
What learners do to demonstrate achievement of learning objective
Warmer- Hot Seat (5 minutes): students will divide into two teams and two chairs will be placed at the front of the room facing away from the LCD screen. Two students from each team will sit on the stool and then the teacher will write a word on a word document displayed on the LCD screen. Both teams then have to explain to their team mate on the stool what the word is without saying it. The first of the two students that says the correct word gets a point for their team, and then both students go back to their original seats and are replaced by another member of their team.
Activity/Tasks List for each stage of the lesson
1) Predict the content of a text based on a series of pictures (2-3 minutes)
2) understand some words that cannot be found in a dictionary or are easier to understand by visual means (2-3 minutes)
3) Read a text for gist (10 minutes)
4) Rereading and guessing the meaning of unknown words (7 minutes)
5) Utilising a dictionary to check guesses (10 minutes)
6) Discussing the reading and new words in groups of four (10 minutes
7) extension task: students do a role play where they discuss crazy future plans utilising key functional grammatical phrases within the text / a) (i) Show students picture 1 of a man sitting inside a crate with his suit case
(ii)Ask learners “What do you think this man wants to do?” If they are on the wrong track ask “Why is there a suit case inside the box with him?” Discuss a few answers
(iii) try and elicit the common noun, crate, for this type of wooden box from students. If unsuccessful teach it.
b) (i) show second picture of a man in hospital with a nurse at his bedside
(ii) ask “What do you think happened next?”
c) (i) Show last picture of a man standing outside smiling
(ii) ask 'What do you think happened after that?'
(a) teacher acts out, mimes or uses props to demonstrate the meaning of conscious/unconscious, upside down/up right, shock to the system, stowaway
(b) the teacher uses actions, mimes or props to check understanding of the words taught
(a) (i) The teacher randomly assigns either letter A or B to each student
(ii) The teacher gives part A of the text to students given the letter A and part B of the text to students given the letter B
(b) Students read their half of the text for general understanding, noting down and underlining the main ideas and any unknown words for later reference
(a) students will reread the text and attempt to guess the meaning of the words they underlined by utilising contextual clues
a) Students check their guesses by referring to a dictionary and quickly noting down the meaning of any words they got wrong
a) Students get into groups of four. Each group must have two students who read text A and two who read text B but otherwise grouping will be based on student preferences
b) As and Bs paraphrase what they read and the meanings of new words to each other
a) If a group finishes early the teacher puts up the word document with the extension task. This includes instructions with definitions and examples of the grammatical phrases to be used
b) Students take it in turns to describe and justify a crazy plan to their class mates which the other members of the group try to talk them out of whilst utilising the key grammatical structures / (ii) learners give reasonable replies like “He wants to travel inside the box”
(ii) learners give well reasoned replies like “He got sick”, “He injured himself” etc..
(ii) learners give logical replies like “He recovered”, “He got better”, “He got to his destination”
(b) students give correct responses to the teacher's actions e.g. conscious, unconscious, stowaway etc.
(b) performance of task 6(b)
(a) performance of task 5(a)
(a) by the teacher monitoring for evidence that the task is occurring
(b) by the teacher monitoring for evidence that the task is being completed satisfactorily and assisting when mistakes, misunderstandings or communication break downs occur.
(b) by the teacher monitoring for evidence that the task is being completed satisfactorily and assisting when mistakes, misunderstandings or communication break downs occur. See learning materials below for some model student responses utilising these structures.
Materials for text prediction exercise
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
The text to be read
The copycat who nearly died air-mailing himself home
Part A
Last month the Magazine wrote about Reg Spiers, who posted himself from London to Australia in a box in 1964. Spiers inspired another stowaway, Welshman Brian Robson, whose journey in the opposite direction was less successful - he was lucky to survive.
"Australia was a complete shock to my system," says Brian Robson. "I found it very difficult, and thought from the moment I got there I wanted to get out as quickly as possible."
But he couldn't just buy a ticket home - he had arrived in Australia in late 1964 on an assisted immigration programme which committed him to spending two years in the country. His travel costs had been paid for by the Australian government, and he wouldn't be able to get a passport to legally leave the country until he had done his time.
He took a "boring and lonely" job as a railway ticket clerk, which left him feeling isolated. And despite having some relatives in Australia, he was homesick and desperate to return home.
So when a relative who was sailing to the UK suggested Robson stowaway on his ship, he decided to try his luck. He used a visitor's pass to get on board, and stayed on the boat until it sailed. But the plan unravelled just hours into the voyage when Robson became violently seasick, and he was taken to the vessel's medical bay by one of the crew. His subterfuge was soon discovered, and he was put off the ship in New Zealand.
With little choice but to accept financial help from another relative in Australia, Robson flew back to Sydney, where he read about the exploits of Reg Spiers. Inspired by Spiers's trip from London to Perth in a wooden crate, Robson decided he would send himself in the opposite direction using the same method.
"From the moment I read it in the newspaper I convinced myself I had no choice," says Robson. "That's what I had to do."
He made his way to Melbourne where he persuaded two friends to help him realise his plan. "At first they said I was completely mad. I spent maybe a week persuading them and they agreed to do it."
The next step was to approach the airline, Qantas. Robson needed to check what size of crate he could air-freight back to the UK, and if, like Spiers, he could send himself cash-on-delivery. Then he went to a builders' merchant and bought the crate he would travel in - a wooden box measuring 30 x 26 x 38 inches (76 x 66 x 96cm).
"I had the crate delivered to the back of the building where I was living, and left it there for a couple of days while we planned the next stage."
Robson wanted to convince Qantas the crate was carrying a computer being shipped back to the UK for maintenance and servicing.
"One of my mates produced an invoice at work on company documents. I took it to Qantas personally, and checked I could send the crate directly by the quickest route, which was about 36 hours," he says.
"I told them we had to make arrangements for it to be collected in London, so wanted the precise flight number."
Confident that his plan would work, Robson decided on a departure date and set about preparing for the journey. The crate was strengthened and fitted with a rope harness to hold him in place. One side of the box was nailed shut by Robson himself from the inside.
"I had a pair of pliers which I could use to pull the nails out on arrival in London."
With less generous proportions than the box Reg Spiers had built for himself, Robson had far less room for manoeuvre, and it was all the more cramped because he put a large suitcase into the crate as well.
"I could fit in there OK as long as I sat down with my knees pressed up in my chest. My back was to the suitcase. It was quite large, which obviously reduced my movements inside even more.
"I couldn't stretch my legs and I couldn't turn around," he says. "I was more or less stuck in that position, which at first was quite comfy but later proved not so sensible."
Robson packed two pillows into the crate, as well as a torch and two bottles - one for water and one for urine. The first leg of his journey, from Melbourne to Sydney, went smoothly. But from there his plan started to go badly wrong.
"They left me on the tarmac, but I was dumped upside down. I was strapped in standing on my head. I tried to turn around but there wasn't enough space, it was impossible.”
"It becomes painful very quickly, throbbing in your neck and the top of your head. Your neck is taking all the weight so it becomes excruciatingly painful. The blood is rushing to your head. You get blackouts. I was in serious pain."
Part B
Robson spent 22 punishing hours upside down in his crate, but was never tempted to reveal himself. "It was London or die - that's how serious I felt about it."
Eventually, much to his relief, the crate was turned upright again and loaded on to another aircraft. Airborne once more, Robson thought nothing would now stop him from getting back home.
But what he didn't know was that the Qantas flight he thought he would travel on was full, so the airline instead loaded him onto a Pan American aircraft which would take a much slower route back to the UK. Robson was travelling in a hold that wasn't heated, and as the journey continued his situation became increasingly serious.
"I had difficulty breathing," he says, "and I started to get pain in my elbows and knees. Slowly, just about every joint in my body started aching. They were swelling - my ankles were swelling really badly."
Robson's "thinking went haywire". He slipped in and out of consciousness, tormented by a nightmare in which he was thrown out of the aircraft mid-flight. "It sounds crazy when you think about it now. But I spent some really terrifying hours."
His aircraft finally touched down and he was taken, still in his crate, out of the hold to a freight shed. Thinking he must be back in the UK, he tried to check the time and date on his watch. But still in extreme pain, and barely able to move, he first needed his torch, clipped to the inside of the crate only 20cm in front of him.