Lesson Plan

I’ve got a new lesson plan for beginners which  I plan to try out soon, but I’ll have to try it out a few different times, with different age groups.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of adult students and none of them are in groups, and this will really work best as a group exercise, and none of them are beginners.

So, I’m going to be trying this on my 5th, 6th and 7th graders.  The idea is to start with a simple phrase that everybody knows, and likes, and likes knowing.  It’s in 10 million pop songs, so any kid who doesn’t know it has wax in their ears and far larger social problems than just not being very good at English.  Of course, I mean “I love you.”

So, I write that on the  board.  Titters from the girls, a slightly  more embarrassed reaction from the boys.  I explain that I intend to teach them 5,000 English sentences in the next 45 minutes.

Then I change the last word.  I love spaghetti.  I love football.  This is the critical stage of the lesson.  If I can get them shouting suggestions from the floor faster than I can write, I’ll get 40 or 50 words on the board in about 5 minutes.  If they look at me blankly and I’m forced to call on them one by one and coax things out of them, it will be a problem.

Then you change the middle verb, because everything implies it’s opposite, so obviously you teach hate, and need, and want, and eat, and drink, and play…and again, if the class is into the fun aspect of it, I’ll get about 15 words down on the board.

Then, I’ll run them through the pronouns and add a few funny names, Justin Bieber will be on the list, half the class loves him and I bet you can guess which half.

Then, I’ll have them compose sentences.  If there’s still time, I’ll make that written.

Then, just before the end of the class, I’ll show them the math.  10 in the first column, times 15 in the 2nd column (I’m just making these numbers up now) is 150.  150 times 40 is 6,000.