March 4

Harry Potter bombs in B1 class

Image from pinterest

I had a less than stimulating start to the week!  On a Monday morning I have a B1.1 group at 10.30 and there are a wonderful group and generally quite enthusiastic and talkative.  I like to put some discussion questions on the board before they arrive for three reasons:

  • It’s good to start the lesson with something communicative
  • They don’t all arrive on time so this gives those who arrive on time something useful to do and is something latecomers can easily become involved in with little guidance from me
  • It’s based around the theme for the lesson (activating schemata and all that metalanguage jazz!)

This week there were some questions on the board with the title Harry Potter as we would later be doing a reading about JK Rowling.  The learners’ response to the initial questions was far less positive than usual as there were no Harry Potter fans in the class and in fact most said they thought the saga was unrealistic and silly (allowed a great teachable moment of some negative adjectives!).

I feel as though this initial stage then set up the atmosphere for the rest of the lesson.  In later discussions, the learners seemed less animated than usual which made me wonder whether they had been negatively affected by an initial phase which was so uninteresting for them.

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Posted March 4, 2015 by Teresa Bestwick in category My thoughts

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