“Share a lesson that you have done that you
feel good about. Describe the lesson and explain why it is a favorite of yours.
What is the learning objective ("Students will be able to...")? How
do the students react to this lesson? Include the name and grade level of this
lesson.”
Pulling from the pool of lessons that we share here at
Bucheon U., my favorite lesson would have to be where we cover directions,
street address, and locations. The main grammar point of the lesson is to
practice prepositions of place, but the students really begin to learn the
grammar in a real way once you disguise it as being anything other than a
grammar lesson. I use an overview map of a sectioned portion of a town – a four
square block of town with more going on than times square in New York – yet the
students never seem to question the over-development of my imagined city square.
Using the map to explain that the Baskin Robbins 
is both between the Cineplex and dinosaur museum
AND above the bookstore (awesome real estate, right?), students can begin to conceptualize
the way we give directions in English. I see the students getting into the lesson more than usual; they begin to compete for the quickest answer, they get excited about naming franchises they recognize, and you can just see their confidence growing with each attempt. It's the kind of lesson that makes you feel great about teaching and reminds you why you do it in the first place.
is both between the Cineplex and dinosaur museum
AND above the bookstore (awesome real estate, right?), students can begin to conceptualize
the way we give directions in English. I see the students getting into the lesson more than usual; they begin to compete for the quickest answer, they get excited about naming franchises they recognize, and you can just see their confidence growing with each attempt. It's the kind of lesson that makes you feel great about teaching and reminds you why you do it in the first place.
This lesson is taught to young adults
with mixed levels of English, but once we start to piece the town together “going
three blocks up and one block over,” even the best students in the class need
to dig in and focus to produce accurate directions. The thing that I like the
most about this lesson, which I usually break down into two sections, is the
real-life application of it. What starts out as a PowerPoint on giving
directions could very well come in handy someday when looking for a hostel in Brussels or a specific restaurant in San Francisco. Having said that, when we move on from directions and are expected to
teach the different types of clothing, let's just say I reminisce about such meaningful topics.
5 comments:
I enjoy teaching my students about prepositions of place as well. It is one of the few lessons that they seem to actually absorb quickly. I think the visual nature of the lesson helps with their retention. I quickly noticed this and I have incorporated more visual oriented activities into my other lesson plans. This has helped me teach the other subjects in the book more effectively.
One of main things that got me excited about this media course is being able to learn new ways of using technology to make my classroom a better visual experience for my students.
Like you, I find I come back to this lesson over and over. It is useful for a multitude of subjects. The shopping unit, the food unit, weekend activities..etc. Thanks for the post.
Yeah bud, using places that students can relate to sounds like a great idea to get them more involved. I heard you guys in Bucheon also take the preposition lessons outside for a treasure hunt/photo session and report back afterwards.
Anything that gets students moving and involved is exactly what I'm looking for. Great post!
Many teachers enjoy this lesson and at Bucheon University it certainly seems true. There are so many approaches for this lesson. We've seen a few good ones at Buchie U. The students really liked the Preposition Photo Hunt. Getting out of the class was fun for them and it wasn't too bad for us either. Cheers to whoever came up with that one. What are we going to do to top that idea?
Zak, it looks like you and I have the exact same favorite lesson at Bucheon University. This Preposition of place lesson is an excellent example of how students retain information quickly if the lesson is intriguing and fun. I agree with you that this lesson has “real life application” as the students will be most likely to use it when they travel overseas. The scavenger hunt aspect of this lesson also complements the instructional information taught first. As you can relate to, the textbook we have to teach is rather “Dry” at times, so this preposition lesson really breaks things up and gets the students excited about class.
Finally in a quick response to Dave Field’s comment on who developed this lesson, I’m pretty sure it was a joint effort by Brodie Read and Neil Munro.
Cheers guys! I know that comments are an assignment for us, but I still appreciate the thoughtful commentary and words of encouragement. I'm glad this post was in some way helpful.
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