Читать книгу Дизайн урока и планирование с нуля / Lesson Design and Planning from scratch. Technology integration - Марина Юрьевна Грабарь - Страница 34

The three reasons

– Communicating objectives to students send a strong message about who is driving the learning.

– Communicating objectives to students gives away the ending before the uncovering even begins.

– Communicating objectives to students discourage students and teachers from pursuing potentially constructive lines of inquiry that appear tangential to the objectives.

How often have you been told that writing the lesson’s objectives on the board is best practice?

Can you think of even one reason why doing this might be a bad idea?

Can you argue? A real story. From a teacher.

That one of my old schools, the principal would insist on written objectives in every classroom because he believed that it was the uniformity in the classroom that routine that helped the school function effectively. While I don’t totally disagree that the consistency and structure helped, it sometimes resulted in some artificial and arbitrary steps teachers were required to take during formal observations. Not only were teachers expected to write up objectives, but also to elicit these objectives (aims) from students. While students were often polled to suggest possible objectives based on warm-up or introductory activities, I don’t think it gives students enough credit to suggest that they felt «ownership» of the lesson because the objective came from them, especially when the teacher made no secret of the fact that the objective was written in the lesson plan. A few years later at a new school that does not require it, I do find myself still writing objectives and agendas on the board. The agendas are generally for me to keep track of the pace of the activities I usually arrange for lessons, but I do tend to use quirky titles that sometimes prompt students to wonder how they relate to what we are doing in the activities leading up to them. Again, these are generally for me though. Some students like writing the objectives in their notes as organizational tools, which I can understand. Still, there are some days when I don’t put one up because I don’t know exactly how much we will figure out over the course of the period. I really value the freedom I currently have because I remember what it was like to not have it and because I know that many don’t have that freedom at all.

Are you fed up with using the same old methods to introduce your lesson topic?

OBJECTIVE DISCUSSION. WAYS TO INTRODUCE YOUR LESSON TOPIC
Using an anecdote

Example topic: idioms

You know I play football, right? No? Well I love it. Anyway, I went into town to buy some new boots the other day. I’m in Sports Direct, and I see these Nike boots that I really like, they’re the new model. The assistant comes over and is like «can I help you?»

And I’m «yeah. Can you tell me how much these

are?» She says «They’re £500»

And I said “£500???? That’s an arm and a leg!

Cuisenaire Rods creation

Example topic: Tourist attractions

Give each pair of students a bunch of Cuisenaire rods.

«Work in pairs. Use the rods to create a model of a well-known tourist attraction in [town/city/country/continent]. You have 2 minutes» Students then look at each model and guess the attraction.

Cuisenaire Rods model

Create your own model using rods. Elicit what it represents.

Example of the UK political parties and their share of the vote, for a lesson on politics)

The Musical «Guess the topic»

Example topic: family and relationships

Think of 3 or 4 songs which in some way reference the theme/topic of your lesson

Avril Lavigne – Skater Boi («he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?»)

The Hollies – He ain’t heavy (he’s my brother)

Baz Luhman – Everybody’s free to wear sunscreen («maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t…”) Ozzy Ozbourne – Mama I’m coming home

Play students a relevant segment of the song (where something about the topic is referenced).

Ask them to write notes on what they hear, compare notes, and guess the topic of the lesson.

Family fortunes

Example topic: British customs and culture / stereotypes

Create a fake family fortunes style question:

«We asked 100 people from England, Scotland and Wales – which things make you a

typical Brit?»

Board the following

1 ________________ 2 ____________ 3_____________ 4____________ 5____________

Students work in groups to prepare answers. Make it a little game (they win points for each correct answer).

Five possible answers for the above: queuing, drinking tea, talking about the weather, eating fish and chips, having bad teeth.

Picture parts

Example topic: animals

Make some extreme close-up pictures of animals. Pass them around and get the students to guess what they are and hence the topic of the lesson

– Picture association «Guess the topic» Example topic: «once in a lifetime’

Gather pictures of things that people MIGHT do only once in a lifetime.

Examples: drive a Ferrari, skydive, run a marathon, win the lottery (?), see a shooting star (?).

Board the pictures or pass them round, students discuss each one and guess the common theme.

Complete the sentence

Topic: Making apologies

Think of a relevant starter sentence and have students complete in their own words «The most common time to say sorry is….»

Topic: 2nd conditionals

«If I looked like David Beckham, I would…»

– Me/not me

Example topic: Food and drink

Get students to create a table with two categories