Submitted by Xu Zhang
Objectives:
Content:
Students will:
- Relate the recreational activities in the target culture to those of their own;
- Familiarize themselves with the various recreational activities in Beijing;
- Find information from a TV guide issued online by the Beijing Television Station
Cultural:
Students will:
- Understand the cultural aspect of recreation in Beijing, differences in gender, age, etc.
- Understand the Chinese concept of recreation and relaxation.
Language: Content Obligatory
Students will:
- Use the following words and phrases (see attachment, Word List Lesson 9, List 1)
- Use the following structure (see attachment, Grammar List Lesson 9, List 1)
Language: Content Compatible
Students will:
- Employ previously learned communication skills in their information exchange
Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will:
- Use skimming and scanning skills to get both the gist and the details of a passage and a TV guide chart
Time Frame:
1.5 hours
Materials Needed:
- Photos on leisure activities
- Copies of a passage on recreation and leisure in Beijing
- Copies of a TV guide
Description of Assessment (Performance Project):
Context:
The students are by now feeling very comfortable with pair work and group work activities. Through these activities they have learned the importance and skills to cooperate and value their own sense of cooperation very much.Pre-task: Pair work.
The students are to discuss in pairs what they themselves often do in their leisure time. They should list the result of their discussion on a piece of paper. The teacher then asks each pair to contribute one thing that they like to do as their recreational activity and list the students' contributions on the board.Task set-up:
The students look in pairs at a set of pictures taken in Beijing to find out what people there are doing in their leisure time. Some of the pictures are obvious, but others may need some guess work. After the pair discussion, two pairs join each other to find out the similarities and differences of ways of recreation between themselves and people in Beijing. When the students finished discussing, the teacher makes every pair/group contribute a point and write these points on board for comparison and contrast.During task:
Information shopping -- Jigsaw reading with long distance group dictation to find out whether their guesses are accurate. This activity can be adapted by the teacher to suit both small classes and large classes. The students are divided into six groups of relatively equal number. The students are then to rearrange the desks and chairs in the room to form six separate groups. Each group is given part of a passage introducing one kind of recreational activity in Beijing. The group members are to read their part first individually, then talk about what they have got to check if each group member understands the major points of the part.After the in-group checking, each group should be divided into three kinds of "labor":
(1) Those who go out to "shop" for information about other recreational activities from other groups. They should not take paper and pencil with them. They can only listen, ask clarification and then remember. These students are to pass and dictate whatever they heard and remember to their group members who take notes. It is recommended that these students each ask one other group for information at a time and run back to their own group to dictate to the note-taking members. The "dictation" does not have to be word for word, as long as the major points are there. (2) Those who stay and get ready to take down information that their group members get from "shopping". The number of this subgroup should be equal to (1), for the convenience of efficient dictation.
(3) Those who stay and tell "customers" from other group the major points of their part of the passage. They may need to tell more than once to different groups because they may not come at the same time. The teacher should make sure that they are telling exactly the same thing to everyone who shops for information.
Everyone should acquire and send information by speaking, no reading is allowed. Teacher should make sure that everyone participates and allow longer time for this activity. In the mean time teacher may note down the students' degree of participation by giving each students marks on a four-point scale.
When the "shopping" and dictation finished, the teacher lets a member from each group to draw lots to decide which recreational activity they are to report to the whole class. The groups are only to present the type of recreation they have got from shopping. They cannot share what they sold, the paragraph they read. The reporting could be done in either of the two suggested ways. The groups may choose their own leaders to report, or each member will speak out one major point they have noted down. The teacher may write what they said on transparency. The other groups may judge the quality of the information passage and are free to add and correct. The students should also discuss the differences in the concept of recreation and relaxation underlying the differences in forms between the Chinese culture and that of the students' own with the guidance of the teacher. At the end of this task, the teacher collects the students' dictation notes and, together with the noted students' participation, evaluates the groups' work by giving a collective score to the whole groups. This evaluation should be done after class.
Post-task:
As homework, each student should summarize (on paper) all the recreational activities people do in Beijing. This assignment is due before the next lesson.The students may also speed read a TV guide (activity may be easily designed by the teacher) to quickly find out the time of a show or all the shows at certain time, etc. The students can do a peer evaluation when discussing answers with the teacher and the whole class. The teacher may also collect the answer sheets to evaluate formally.
Assessment:
Embedded in the tasks
References and Resources:
http://www.btv123.com/program.htm
Some pictures are available in my yahoo photo album after opening the album, click on "recreation and leisure".
Other photos can be found in this lesson's attachment.
Attachments:
NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)Word List Lesson 9.PDF (list 1)
Grammar List Lesson 9.PDF (List 1)
play.PDF
Leisure.jpg
Leisure2.jpg
Leisure3.jpg
Leisure4.jpg
newspaper.jpg
freemarket3.jpg
