Details from today’s (Thu. 31 Jan. 2013) COC IEP 200 Class at the College of Chicago. You can compare what happened below with the lesson plan, heading into class. For context, please see this page with more past lesson plans for this class and all the class recaps.
NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS
Read “British 4G mobile spectrum auction underway” from Wikinews. Was the first time we read a Wikinews article in my class and, understandably, it was more difficult for the students than the news written for ESL students we’ve been reading (Breaking News English, News for You). Students rated the difficulty from “so-so” to “difficult,” yet everyone was able to answer the questions correctly!
That was very encouraging to me, though I will be switching back primarily to ESL based news, because the topics are really interesting and they already have wonderful activities developed for each article.
- Read article online in HTML on wikinews.org by clicking here
- Download article PDF by clicking here [620.2 kB, from danoff.org CC BY 2.5]
- Listen to the article audio below (courtesy of Wikimedia, source):
QUIZ 2
Students took this block’s second quiz on the vocabulary and grammar we’ve learned thus far.
SURVEY PROJECT
Students wrote all 9 of their questions for last night’s homework. Today in class each student presented them to the class and got feedback from their peers. I also wrote notes on each draft for the student to fix over the weekend.
Reviewed and discussed Unit 4 pages 81 to 83.
FAST LISTENING
We completed the following 2 listening activities from Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab:
- Telling Time Clocks and Watches Short URL http://is.gd/R3rq1t (Caps sensitive)
- Clothing and Fashion Basic Level Short URL http://is.gd/LbhnvK
COMIC BOOK
Read the next two pages of our fourth “Fantom of the Fair” story from Amazing Mystery Funnies Vol. 3 #1 this one is set in a coal mine and answered the comprehension questions in the lesson plan.
FICTION
Began by reviewing page 12 of ‘Two Worlds’ from Antoinette Moses’ Frozen Pizza and Other Slices of Life (discussed yesterday) focusing on the narrative shift in point of view. Once it was explained in simple terms the students comprehended the concept. I assume it was not too difficult, because they were comfortable with the idea of narrative shifts from consuming art in their own cultures.
We then read pages 13 and 14 together. One student asked about the word “cafés” as she knew coffee was referred to as coffee in English, not café as it is in her home language. I explained they were referring to coffee shops and the confusing plural aspect was in reference to multiple coffee shops.
“Cafe Terrace at Night” by Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
MUSIC
As students were working through the news article Aviici’s new track helped them along (hat tip thisSongisSick.com)
HOMEWORK
- NorthStar 4: “C WRITING” exercises on pages 86 to 87
- News: Read “France shuns use of Twitter ‘hashtag’” Breaking News English article and listen to the audio mp3 then complete
- a the True/False and Synonym Match activities
- Survey Project: Write the final draft of your 9 survey questions
- Study for Quiz 3 next Thursday: Vocab Words from NorthStar Unit 4 page 74 and Grammar pages 31
- to 33
- Fiction: read/review pages 13 and 14 of “Frozen Pizza …”
COPYRIGHT NOTES
- Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links,books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
- Unless otherwise noted, class recap text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
