# Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books/7B/Lesson 8

牛津初中英语·同步听力(七下) FUN WITH ENGLISH 7B Chapter 7: Getting There Anqing Foreign Language School Grade 7 Lesson 8 Version 0.2
This chapter focuses on transportation. In this lesson plan I hope to complete a few good textbook activities quickly and spend majority of the time with the students interviewing one another about their thoughts on transportation. The lesson finishes with a map based game that should be a fun way for students to use their English.

## Lesson Objectives

* The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
* The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
* Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
* The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.

## Lesson Plan

Before Class Starts
* If time, walk around and mingle with the students before the bell rings. (King)
Greeting: Introduce What's the craic?
* What's the craic is used in Ireland as a way to say "How are you?" [1]
* The responses are the same as "How are you?"
Opening: Riddle & Questions
* Share a simple riddle with the students.
* Do you have any questions for me?
* What do you think of our lessons? How can we make our lessons better? (King)
Textbook: Page 26 Let's get ready A
* Before going over the answers, read out and practice the pronunciation of all the words.
* Have you seen any of these signs in Anqing?
Textbook: Page 26 Let's get ready B
* Make sure they read out the full answer.
* After each answer have all of them listen and repeat after me.
Textbook: Page 27 Let's listen 1 B Tapescript Page 82
* Read slowly twice.
Textbook: Page 28 Let's listen 2 A Tapescript Page 82
* First time read at my normal speaking speed.
Activity: Transportation Interview[CN Transportation = Yùnshū Interview = Fǎngwèn]
* Now we are going to interview a friend about transportation.
* Please ask them these questions and write down the answers. Please only speak in English.
* Questions: [Write on the board]
** What types of transportation do you like?
** What types of transportation are good for the environment? Why?
** What types of transportation are bad for the environment? Why?
* Go around class helping individual groups. Don't spend too, too long on the activity.
* At the end ask two to three groups if they would like to share with the class?
Game: Dizzy Maps
* Have two similar maps with about four to five buildings drawn on the board.
* Make two teams.
* Ask for volunteers, or choose participants.
* Bring them to the front of the classroom.
* Cover their eyes with a shirt or tie or something.
* Spin them around four times.
* Give them a piece of chalk and have their classmates guide them to their destination. The first one to arrive wins.

### Maybe Also Try

Activity: Map and Directions (For classes with a high level and a patient attitude.)
* OK, now I want you to work in pairs.
* Create a map, with three buildings.
** Grocery Store
** Bank
** School
* and five roads.
** Danoff Road
** Brown Street
** English Avenue
** Fuller Lane
** Elton John Boulevard
* You have 2 minutes, go!
* Time is up, now I want you to give your map to a new group.
* New group, please write down the directions for how to go from the Bank to the School to the grocery store.
Textbook: Page 29 Let's listen 2 A Tapescript Page 82 (Maybe)

### Extra Time

Game: Number of Letters? (Mr. Brown)
* Make two teams.
* Tell them to make a word that begins with one letter, e.g. D, and has 6 letters.
* Go back and forth between the teams making the words.
Activity: The Man in The Mirror Slideshow"
* Teach the song and have the students sing along with you and Michael.

## Lesson Review
### Class Notes
#### 20 Apr 2010 AM Period 4 Grade 7 Class 3

* Took a while to go over "What's the craic?".
** They knew what Ireland is, I don't think they really got it.
* Forgot to ask them riddles.
* Took a while after that to get them to move into their new seats.
** Those were moderately successful. One low level boy instead of being distracted by the window now chats with a friend.
** It is nice having them all in my sight line at all times.
* Having them repeat all the words in the textbook back to me lost their interest after a bit.
* They were very distracted and chatty for the whole lesson.
* The interview activity only worked well for advanced students. Everyone else was lost or completely uninterested.
* I asked a girl for her suggestions. She said I should make the students be quiet.
Next Week
* Try the interview activitiy again.
* Consider seperating certain groups.
* One student suggested I ask the monitor for help.

#### 20 Apr 2010 Day in Review

What Could I Have Done Better?
* Gotten the classes attention.
What Did I Do Well?
* Not lose my temper.
What Did I Learn?
* New activities require VERY thorough explnations.
What Did My Students Get From The Lesson?
* Oral / aural practice, some new vocabulary, and a little thinking about transportation.
Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved?
* The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
** Nope.
* The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
** No.
* Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
** No.
* The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.
** No time.
How can I Improve the Lesson?
* Had some sort of computer display about "What's the craic?"
* Had some sort of computer display about the interview activity.

#### 21 Apr 2010 PM Period 1 Grade 7 Class 11

* Didn't do "What's the craic?"
* Following the greeting we talked for a little about the weather. I explained how I am more comfortable inside than outside, so I like the rain because then I do not have to feel bad about going outside.
* The riddle went well. Wrote their answers on the board. One boy got it pretty quick.
* After that I answered their questions as always they have a good amount. Most interesting topic we got to today was the "Egyptian Dance".
* Their suggestions for making our class better:
** study
** learn
** clean
** write homework
** play games
* Only did Let's get ready from the textbook. Went over the pronunciation of the words before I had them give me the answers. It'd probably be good to do it before they even begin answering the questions.
** As they gave the answers, we spent a long time chatting about the different road signs and I told a story about when I got busted for speeding while I was in Japan.
* Interview activity took a really long time to explain.
** May be better to:
*** Start by asking what's an interview. Give an example of a reporter and President Obama.
*** Have the questions written beforehand [while they are doing let's get ready] or written on the computer screen.
*** Maybe they do not have to write down the answers?
* The boy and the girl who had the spat last week were fine.
Next Week
* Interview activity again.
* Talk about the Egyptian dance? Maybe this: How to Perform Modern Egyptian Dance Part 1, on 5min dot com.
* Another riddle.

#### 21 Apr 2010 PM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 10

* Lesson began quite enthusiastically.
** Yo! / What's up? went very well.
** Introduced What's the craic? which I believe went OK. Somewhat difficult for them and I'm not quite sure how to explain it.
** Answered a few of their questions, then asked:
*** Do you like our class? Why? [relaxing / fun ...] How can we make our class better?
**** Suggestions:
***** play cloudy tree a game that has something to do with a train and is usually played in a park
***** sing Chinese or English songs
***** listen to music
***** watch anime
***** cartoon films
***** be quiet
* Then did the riddle, but by this point I had gone too long or their attention had waned. Not many of them were with me, so the riddle did not work so well.
** Some kind of special time is there at the beginning of a lesson, where they are with me and paying attention but if I'm only able to connect with a few or them or something else like that I can lose them.
* Did Let's get ready. I tried going over the vocabulary before we began, but that did not really work. Covering the vocabulary before we got deeply into the answers is helpful.
* Spent the last fifteen minutes on the interviews. Using the method I suggested above helped, but still I have to walk around and work with most pairs individually before any progress can be made.
** Might be better to try letting them make the pairs themselves.
** Nice to see multiple groups of students volunteer themselves to participate.
** Might also be nice to have some sort of prop microphone.
* Spent the last minute and a half teaching them the chorus to my favorite Otis Redding song.
* Throughout class a few boys were tossing stuff around the room, which was annoying.
Next Week
* That one student's test is from Mr. Brown's class.
* Find out what Cloudy Tree is.
* Do the interview activity again.

#### 21 Apr 2010 Day in Review

What Could I Have Done Better?
* Explained the interview activity in a way that did not take up fifteen minutes.
What Did I Do Well?
* Talked for virtually the entire period.
What Did I Learn?
* New activities require VERY thorough explnations.
What Did My Students Get From The Lesson?
* Oral / aural practice, some new vocabulary, and practice giving an interview to their classmates.
Were the Lesson Objectives Achieved?
* The opening riddle and questions will draw the students attention.
** Yes.
* The textbook activities will go quickly and be productive.
** Yes.
* Students will speak only English to eachother while they interview one another.
** No.
* The map game will be fun and students will participate in English.
** No time.
How can I Improve the Lesson?
* Improve the instructions for the interview activity.

#### 22 Apr 2010 PM Period 2 Grade 7 Class 8

* Kept my explanation of "What's the craic?" simple and the students seemed to grasp the concept.
* Asked them a slightly different riddle, which one boy suprised me by getting quickly.
* Re-worded how I asked for their feedback.
** Asked first how can I improve?
*** Funny
*** Interesting things
*** Watch film every class
*** Joke
*** Listen to music
*** You know a lot about computer. Use more computer, we like those lessons.
** Asked second, how can we improve?
*** Day, day up - good, good study
*** Good co-operation
*** Speak more English
*** Be active
*** Be quiet
*** Be interesting
* They then had tons of questions, which took up most of the lesson time.
* Went through Let's get ready slowly, focusing on each answer.
** One girl who doesn't ususally talk got an answer wrong. She sat down and seemed quite disappointed. I called on her again for the next answer and then told her great job! This technique helps some shy students.
* Did not have enough time for the interview activity.
Next Week
* One boy asked to play baskeball after school. I declined because of other commitments. If possible try to play after the next class.

#### 23 Apr 2010 AM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 7

* Began with "What's the craic?" kept it simple and it kept their interest.
* Next went with the story of Michael Jordan being cut from his high school team. They were excited by the idea of the story but the one I told and/or the way I told it did not elicit much excitement.
* Aksed a riddle but didn't give them the answer.
* Then I asked them if they had any questions followed by suggestions.
** They had some good ideas:
* Spent a long time talking about the textbook answers. Going through each one slowly and methodically.
* Bell rang before we did anything else, but it turned out to be quite fun.
* Of course one of the best students came up afterwards and infromed me the lesson was boring, because "we didn't play any interesting games."
Next Week
* What's the craic?
* Answer to riddle about University.

#### 23 Apr 2010 AM Period 4 Grade 7 Class 9

* Observed by three teachers.
* After greeting my students I had them all turn around and say hi to the observing teachers. I then aksed my students if it was OK for the teachers to watch. They were silent so I just said "OK!!!"
* Suggestions to improve class.
** Changes for me
*** play games [also wrote "no we are not children" though i don't recall why]
*** watch films / cartoon / videos
*** talk about some goo things
**** history of the NBA
**** story of Anqing Foreign Language School
** Changes for them
*** be quiet
*** learn
*** exciting
*** match
*** sing songs
* Kids behaved far better than usual but kept their energy.
* Skipped the MJ story saving time instead for the map game.
* Did the riddle which got a lot of kids thinking and one bright girl got the answer.
* Were able to get through a lot of the textbook quickly.
* Finished class with the map game which went far better because I brought in ties for the kids. Of course once we started the competetive aspect it went wild with all of them rushing to the board.
* Had to calm it down.
Next Week
* Perhaps map game again since they now know it.

#### 23 Apr 2010 PM Period 3 Grade 7 Class 2

* Spent the first 15 minutes or solving a problem.
* An alien had come to Anqing [idea from Johnson] and they had to explain to the alien how eathlings live, but the alien could only speak English.
** Went over food / clothes / friends asking Why? How? and What? for each.
** Pushed it a little too far. A lot of students lost interest by that point.
* Then went into the riddle and questions for me? routine.
* Went through the textbook, but not as thorughly as possible [in terms of me expanding upon answers], because I wanted to save time to play the dizzy maps game at the end.
* Before we started I asked for a volunteer, but they did not know what the word meant.
* Just had one student go and I added things like "No entry"
Next Week
* One girl was ready to go at the end of the lesson, but the bell rung. Have her play next class.
* Another girl wanted to know my Chinese name. Have it ready for her.

## Appendix
### Acknowledgments

* Ideas I got from Stuart Brown, I acknowledged with (Mr. Brown).
* I would like to thank all the 7th and 8th grade classes at Anqing Foreign Language School who had this lesson for their participation and feedback. I would also like to thank the Anqing Foreign Language School for allowing me to teach there.
* Marjorie King provided some feedback on my last lessons, that was built into this lesson. (King)

### Changelog

Version 0.2 19 Apr 2010
* Added the dizzy maps game and the interview activity.
* Dropped the transport discussion.
* Added the maybe also try section.
Version 0.1 17 Apr 2010