10/09/2013

Somebody to love by Queen

Sometimes the best ideas come to your mind out of the blue. This time I got to know, that I was supposed to hold a lesson with over twenty students aged 12. Two groups of various English level, a typical school class. First, I had to find a common topic, then make up a lesson in about 2 hours. The course of events led me from a chart with some basic vocabulary straight to Zanzibar. How come? Let me explain.
The students were to learn about prefixes like SOME, ANY, NO and EVERY. I prepared a chart that they copied to their notebooks. I knew that that lesson was just a start of something bigger, so I didn't care about the fact they they will not accomplish the learning process. The lesson was aimed at indicating that there is such an element of English grammar and vocabulary. I had only 45 minutes, so the amount of time I could spend explaining grammar was also limited. What is more, during the lesson it was clear that most of the students knew the vocabulary perfectly. I just had to organise their knowledge.
After introducing words like "somebody, anybody, anywhere, nowhere, everything" etc. we moved to more exciting tasks.
Task 1 - "Somebody to love"
I asked the students whether they had ever heard about the band Queen. I was not sure of the answer in the age of Justin Bieber but to my surprise and relief they could even elicit some titles of their hits! Amazing! Then, it was an easy job to encourage them to listen to the song, which is full of the words I wanted to revise.
Before listening to this piece of music, students were given the lyrics and their job was to underline all the words of the lesson and notice in what kinds of structure they are used (somebody for positive sentences, anybody for questions and so on). After analysing this part, we had a chance to enjoy the masterpiece.
Task 2 - Mercury Rising
Then, I asked them what they knew about Freddie Mercury. After receiving some information on his biography, I handed out a reading task that comes from "Inside Out" by Macmillan. The text is not easy for students of primary school, but they managed to scan it and choose the right aswers in the quiz. Definitely, they succeeded in improving this exam technique which was one of the aims of the lesson.

Task 3 - Zanzibar
Well, I have to say that this lesson is an outcome of my fascination. With every moment of preparations I got more and more interested in Mercury's biography. The most shocking information for me was that he was born on this beautiful tropical island of Zanzibar. I decided to show my students how picturesque it is.

And that was the end of our lesson. Unfortunately, I have no chances to continue with the whole class, but the next thing my group is going to do is to deepen their understanding of the grammar topic itself. Maybe we will use the knowledge in some kinds of activities? I am waiting for an inspiration to come :)

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