Textbook Lesson Introductions

How to create an engaging introduction for textbook chapters

Feel free to use, modify, and upload your own lessons!
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## Description

One of my JTEs put it very eloquently; she pointed out that all other subject teachers get to teach about the things they are interested in and that they know a lot about, but EFL teachers need to teach about a variety of topics they may have never encountered before. Environmentalism, anthropology, technology, science, sociology... The topics in English Language textbooks span a delicious variety of subjects! This can be fantastic for students who all have separate interests, but can be taxing for our JTEs who only study English grammar.

Enter the JET teacher! Due to our English fluency and internet literacy, JETs are uniquely capable of supplementing the existing lessons in the textbooks and taking them from grammar-based drills to engaging contextual knowledge.

Introducing the topic and context of a lesson before students begin to read is also a proven way to increase comprehension and retention!

## Materials

* Internet
* Power Point / equivalent program
* Research Skills

## Procedure

To create an effective introduction lesson, you want to get your students interested in the topic at hand so that they forget they're learning English and instead focus on the new information. In your introduction, try to provide students with information that leaves them
* Shocked
* Surprised
* Engaged
* Entertained
* Inspired

### Research the Author

This is the best first step to creating an interesting introduction. Many textbooks include lessons that are excerpts or are adapted from native level sources. Check the bibliography section of your textbook to find original authors and see if there is anything interesting about the context of their work. Look for
* Wikipedia articles
* News articles
* TED Talks
* Youtube videos

For example, a lesson about "choice" in one popular textbook is originally from a book written by pshyco-economist Dr. Sheena Iyengar. A quick Google search revealed that she was inspired to research choice because of both her experiences in a strict religious household and her childhood illness that left her completely blind by high school. I introduced the lesson in terms of this fact and showed a clip from her TED talk. Several weeks later I had a student approach me to say that she had gone home to do more research about Dr. Iyengar on her own because she was so inspired by the woman.
### Research the Photos

Sometimes the photos in the lesson can be the key to further information.
* What is the painting/photograph of?
* Who is the artist/photographer?
* What is the context of the picture?

For example, one lesson about Ruby Bridges began with the Norman Rockwell painting, "The Problem We All Share." I began the lesson by showing the picture to the students and having them first talk about what they saw in the picture and then explaining about the context.
For a chapter about optical illusions, I found a variety of relevant examples to show the class for discussion.
### Research the Topic

Basic of basics, but sometimes the most difficult to do.
* First, try to find the most interesting points of the chapter and summarize.
* Then try to find extra information online
	+ Updates about the situation
	+ Fun facts
	+ More examples
	+ Intercultural comparisons

For example, for a lesson about the International Space Station, I collected fun facts about the ISS that were both from NASA websites and from the textbook and began the lesson with a guessing game using the facts.
For a short reading about a cat who was accidentally shipped across the Atlantic ocean on a cargo ship, I found news articles that included pictures of the real cat and its family.
For a chapter written by Tetsuro Matsuzawa about his famous research with chimpanzees at Kyoto University, I found related international research that supports and expands upon his claims.
## Variations

### Lecture Style

You *can* just hop up to the front of the class and give a 10-20 minute lecture about the topic. However, this can be very difficult if your students aren't motivated and the topic is difficult. Try using more visuals and less text. This keeps your students both visually and audibly engaged.
### Discussion Questions

Depending on the level of your students, you can include Think-Pair-Share discussion questions in your introduction.
### Gamify

Don't rely too much on games in your classroom -- we don't want to be the superfluous game ALTs --, but you can get your students using English while learning about the topic at hand with a quick game. Warm ups like these keep your students entertained but also on-track with the topic and curriculum.
For example, you can have the students get in groups to guess the answers to fun facts about the topic before reading. Or have students in pairs with one student looking at an important picture from the lesson and describing it in English as best as they can while their partner tries to draw it without looking at the original.