LESSON PLAN Joseph Arxhoek Cooperating Teacher s name: Mona Stiles School: American Language Institute, New York University Date: 4/17/2012, 9-12 am Level: 2 Pre-planning reflection: By now, the students in class know each other very well. They have really bonded and often spend time together after class as well. This is beneficial for Mona and me because their initial reluctance to speak English is slowly fading. In this lesson, the students will also have plenty of opportunities to do group work and discuss their opinions. Students have been working on a unit dealing with culture shock and cultural differences in the textbook World Link 3. They have learned vocabulary related to culture shock and cultural difference and have been practicing the language needed to talk about these topics. There have been some very interesting discussions and I hope that today s lesson about the different stages of culture shock will provide some more opportunities to share their feelings. The students are from various countries. They all have more or less experiences about culture shock and they have been in some or all of the stages of culture shock. That s why I think they will definitely be interested in the text and the culture shock curve and benefit from it also, as they will be able to give each other advice on how to cope with their feelings of culture shock. In this lesson, I will try not to control the activities too strongly. I realize that there will be a substantial amount of teacher talk necessary to introduce the culture shock U-curve, as the students will most likely be unfamiliar with it. However, I will strive to be clear and concise. In addition, I will emphasize that this curve is only an academic theory and that their own experiences might be completely different. I expect that some students might tell me they have not (yet) experienced any real culture shock. In that case, I will just tell them that sharing anything they found different in this country will be fine as well; it does not necessarily have to be shocking. Something I will also work on this lesson is to tell the students why we are doing certain activities and what the goals and the objectives are for the lesson. This will make the lesson more meaningful for them..
LESSON PLAN (SWBAT = Students will be able to) Lesson Goals: SWBAT to read a blog entry for gist and detail. SWBAT to talk about important events in their lives. Lesson Objective SWBAT to use their newly acquired vocabulary and idioms in a discussion about culture shock. SWBAT to explain the general stages of culture shock. SWBAT to draw and explain their own culture shock curve based on the model. Materials/Classroom Set-up blackboard handout (culture shock curve) Length of lesson 45 minutes (with 30 minute extension activity) of a total of 2 hours 45 minutes
Stage Procedure Rationale Time Interac Warm-up T tells students we will continue talking about culture shock. Re-Introduce the topic of culture shock. Creating interest 5 mins tion Shows students picture of a fish out of water. Asks students how this picture could be related to culture shock. Ss discuss briefly.. Ss-Ss Prereading activity T explains idiom and links it to culture shock. Asks Ss if they have an expression like this in their own languages. Reading for gist Reading for more detail Vocab. review (optional) Tell Ss they will read a few blog entries written by a boy called JT. He went away for a few months and wrote about his experiences. T asks Ss to read and decide how happy he was abroad by writing H (happy) and or NH (not happy) next to the blog entry. Check answers. T distributes a blank graph (time on x-axis, happiness on y-axis) and asks students to draw a graph of JT s feelings based on the blog entries. T also asks them to highlight the words that make them decide how happy JT was. Ss compare their graphs and discuss. Exercise C on p. 52 Target vocabulary: culture shock, to be jet lagged, to make eye contact, to overcome the language barrier, to break bad eating habits, to engage in small talk. Ss improve their reading speed and reading accuracy by reading for gist. They read with a purpose. Ss share their answers in a non threatening environment. Ss learn how to read for more detail by paying special attention to vocabulary. Ss share their answers in a non threatening environment. Providing Ss with the necessary vocabulary to do the task. 5 mins 10 mins (5 mins) Ss-T Ss-Ss
T tells Ss some sociologists have done research on this phenomenon and have come up with a U-curve or W-curve to explain the stages of culture shock. T hands Ss curve handout and asks Ss to discuss in pairs what the various stages mean. (stages: honeymoon, culture shock, adjustment, adaptation). Ss learn about culture shock relevant to their lives and preparation for the task. 5 mins. Ss-Ss Feedback to T. Ss-T T asks students to draw their own culture shock graph. Does it look like a U too or different? Asks students to mark the phases and a short personal explanation on the curve. Ss compare graphs. T tells Ss to discuss the graphs in groups of 3 and to provide each other suggestions on how to cope with culture shock. Ss share what they discussed. Ss perform task relevant to their own lives. They have the opportunity to recycle newly acquired vocabulary. Ss share ideas with their peers. Ss selfevaluate and peer-evaluate their feelings of culture shock. Ss get speaking practice in a non-threatening environment. 10 mins 10 mins. Ss-Ss Ss-T Extension writing activity: Write a blog entry about culture shock. A classmate responds. Ss get more practice to express their feelings about culture shock. extension: 20 mins. (or could be homework)
Attachment 1: Reading Text (from World Link 3, p. 53) JT s world Jul 14 I ve been here about a month. It s harder than I thought. At first, I was jet lagged. I had less energy and I slept all the time. When I felt better, I noticed something: everyone seemed to avoid making eye contact with me. Is it me or some kind of cultural difference? Aug 1 I m a little discouraged. I don t know if I will ever overcome the language barrier here. I try to communicate with gestures and facial expressions. Unfortunately, it doesn t usually work very well. Sep 18 Yesterday I went to the movies with some friends. Afterwards, we went out to dinner. It was really fun! People don t eat much junk food here, so I m able to break some of my bad eating habits. I m actually getting healthier by being here! Oct 31 Tomorrow is my birthday, but I won t be celebrating. I ve been sick for about a week. And I feel homesick. I miss my friends and family. People here are nice, but they don t really know me, Sometimes I feel like I m pretending to be someone else. Nov 23 Tomorrow I go home! It was difficult to live here at first, but now I love it and I don t want to leave yet. Anyway, it s been a great experience and I can t wait to tell everyone about it in person! Nov 27 Well, I m at home, but it doesn t feel like home. No one seems very interested in my experiences overseas. My friends just want to engage in small talk. It seems so unimportant. Have I changed or has this place changed?
Attachment 2: Handout (Culture Shock curves)
Attachment 3: blank graph for students own culture curve
Post-teaching reflection: I feel that today s lesson was one of the more successful ones I have taught at ALI so far. The discussion about culture shock that ended the lesson was a very interesting one. I was satisfied to see all students engaged, sharing their experiences and opinions, especially after a slightly shaky start of the lesson. Some students arrived late, so I did not start teaching until 9.10. I am not sure if my warmer (the fish out of the water idiom) got all students engaged, but after spending about five minutes explaining it and getting some correct responses, I abandoned trying to explain the relevance of this idiom to the topic of culture shock, even though I realized not all students understood it yet. The reading and the vocabulary activities went well; the students completed them quickly and I didn t see any major problems while I was circulating. The most interesting part of the lesson was the culture shock curve, the idea of which had come up to me when I was reading the blog entry in the textbook. I tried to introduce the curve by not talking too much, as so far the lesson had been quite teachercentered. I feel this was successful, as the students seem to understand the various stages of culture shock when I asked them to have a look at the curve themselves and discuss with their partners. They then drew their own culture shock curves. It was fascinating to see them express their feelings about their stay in New York in a graph. Drawing lines gave them a different way of expressing feelings they might not normally have talked about in class. After they finished their curves, they formed groups of four and shared the various high points and low points on their curves. This worked very well, better than I had expected in fact; there were questions, comments, explanations and, luckily, many
laughs as well. I was lucky that the students have been getting along really well in class these days, as otherwise this affective activity might have encountered resistance from the shy and quiet students in class. Although the first part of the lesson contained quite a lot of teacher talk (unfortunately this was the only part that Laura was able to observe), the last activity was student-centered and student directed, as the students decided themselves what they wanted to share as well as how exactly they wanted to discuss their culture shock curves. I felt the students were motivated by the activities and interested in getting to know each other better. In addition to this, what they took away from the lesson was some psychological theory. I would definitely use the culture shock curve again in a future lesson if the opportunity arises to do so.