I find the way(s) a teacher’s personality shapes the learning process intriguing,
to say the least. Our entire philosophy of life shows through our instruction
not only through the preparation for our lessons but mainly through the snap
decisions we take at each moment in class either to compensate for inequalities
of any kind or to deal with challenges – educational or managerial. This means that any material provided either
in the form of a course book or lesson plan will eventually undergo as many
adjustments as teachers using the material.
It would be interesting, therefore, for teachers who set out to adopt
some common material to share their experiences of actually using it in class
and accounting for the choices made.
I will provide an example of material that can be used in various ways
depending on who you are and what the goals you have set are.
James
Thurber’s stories constitute excellent
resources for teaching English for various reasons. For one thing, many of his
stories can be appreciated by both children and adults. Besides, you can find
simple ones that an intermediate student can follow (The Moth and the Star, The Little Girl and the Wolf) as well as
stories for more advanced students (The Night
the bed Fell, What do you Mean it was Brillig?)
I will use The Unicorn in the Garden here. (Please find the story at the
end of this post.)
A traditional approach would be to give the text to the students and
allow the time to read it. One could ask content questions afterwards and
perhaps invite students to interpret the story, to think of what it could
possibly mean. Is it to be taken at face value or should one delve into it to
find the underlying message?
One might decide to engage the students in the story more actively, in
which case one could show an animated version of it on You Tube (link provided
at the end) and then hand out the printed version of it.
One might, however, want the students to produce some language and make
predictions about the content of the story, which could be achieved by showing
the video without sound and inviting the students to make up the story as they
go along.
Alternatively one might decide to provide some key words before asking
the students to invent the story so that the resulting stories would
approximate the original one.
Rather than having a general discussion, the teacher could guide it by writing
down some cues on the board (realism, imagination, society, limits, normal,
eccentric etc).
A written task could be assigned asking the students to give a different end to the story. The woman
was right after all (unicorns are mythical beasts!): why should one be penalised
for being down to earth – though I don’t really think this is what she was
punished for!
Others might grab the opportunity to teach some more sophisticated
vocabulary such as “reversal of roles” or “turn the tables on someone”.
The possibilities are endless. So it is over to you now.
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