Per doctor’s orders, I am currently banished to my bed due to strep
throat- amigdalitis. I actually had
to look it up because in Argentina it’s called anginas. So I knew that I was sick with something, but I wasn’t
sure exactly what until I whipped out
my online dictionary. Giving classes on strep throat probably wasn’t the best
idea, so I have to take it easy this weekend. I wanted to meet some people
through CouchSurfing and ‘get out there’ a little bit more, but it will have to
wait!
The good news is that I have time to catch up on some reading and
blogging.
I thought that it would be cool to do a Lesson of the Week segment. I
personally love reading teaching
blogs that help me brainstorm ideas
for lesson plans, so maybe this entry can help out some fellow volunteers and
TEFL teachers. As a new volunteer, you experiment a lot with different ideas.
Sometimes they go just okay and sometimes they totally bomb (I’m sure every
teacher knows that moment of dread when you stare into a sea of 20 blank faces
and then try to then improvise on the spot). But sometimes, lessons go really
well, the kids use the language, and they actually have fun doing it! I think
that every teacher relishes those awesome lessons where everything seems to
just click.
What would you like?
I did this lesson with my terceros
or high school juniors. They are working on a unit with food, and one of the
activities in their workbook dealt with using different measuring units (a cup of,
a glass of, a bowl of, etc.). Their learning objective was to order food at a
restaurant using these expressions.
Vocabulary
·
A cup of
·
A glass of
·
A slice of
·
A piece of
·
A bowl of
·
A bag of
Miscelaneous food items, such as pizza,
chips/crisps, water, juice, apple tart, cake, pie, etc.
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| Food items. The one in the middle is an apple tart. I realized halfway through drawing that I don't know what an apple tart looks like... |
Grammatical Structures
What would you like (to eat/drink)?
I would like _______
Could I have ?
Here you are.
The Lesson
I started out the lesson by passing out nametags and asking each student
what his favorite food was. I introduced
the word of the day (‘tried’) and asked the them, Have you tried ____? They responded and they also asked me if I
have tried various Chilean foods. Have you tried empanadas? Have you tried
terremotos? Have you tried kababs (anticuchos?) Of course, I said yes to
almost everything!
I then brought up a graphic organizer with the measurement words. I had
various foods drawn on paper with sticky tack on the back. I told the kids, I would like…and then held up the paper.
I would like…. Pizza? A whole pizza!? No?
Ah, very good. I would like a SLICE of pizza! I then put the piece of paper
under the respective category on the board. Or I let the kids stick it on the
board for me. I also joked around with the students to reinforce vocabulary
words. So I would like a glass of pizza? *pretend
to drink a glass of pizza* No? A slice? Ahhh…
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| Excuse my Ipad's poor picture quality! |
After we sorted out the vocabulary items, if I had time, I did a ball
toss with the students, asking them What
would you like? I would like _______. Then we got into our game, which was inspired by a lesson
that I saw during English Opens Doors orientation. There were two teams, and another person who was
the customer. One person from each team
stood in the back of the room, while the customer sat at a desk in the front of
the room. I placed all of the food papers (I had duplicates for each team) on
both sides of the customer’s desk. The waiters asked, ´´What would you like?´´ and then the customer said, ´´I would like …´´
When I said GO!, the waiters ran to
the front of the room to pick up the paper of the food item. The first waiter
to place the paper on the desk and say, ´´Here you are!´´ got a point for their
team.
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| Getting Ready to Race! |
I enjoyed some of the customers’ suggestions. I would like a slice of bread and a glass of water. (Living life on
the wild side, huh?). I would like a bag
of chips and a slice of cake. (Class, is that healthy?). Some students put
the waiters’ working memory to test by asking for five things off the menu! And
some students said, ´´I would like everything off the menu, please!’’ and the
waiters scrambled to pick up all the pieces of paper.
Finally, for my ticket to leave/ exit question, I asked each student, What would you like (to eat/drink)?
Finally, for my ticket to leave/ exit question, I asked each student, What would you like (to eat/drink)?
So if your class is working on food, this might be an interesting lesson
try!
