Perfect Date (Shadowing)

Jonathan Shepard

OBJECTIVES:

1. To improve listening skills.

2. To write creatively.

3. To learn how to shadow (to practice speaking and listening).

PROCEDURES:

1. Warm up (5 min): Chalk baton. ALT/JTE will prepare 6 cards with a category written on it. Each row will be a team and pick a category. Students have 3 minutes to write as many words about that category on the board. The team with the most words written correctly wins. After a student writes a word on the board, they pass the chalk to the next person on the team. Category topics vary greatly with class ability but, for this lesson, should be geared toward dating. E.g.: places to go on a date; adjectives describing a person, place, or food; food eaten on a date; date activities; etc. *If not erased, these words work great for the “Think time” part of the lesson.

2. Dictation (10 min): Students will listen and fill in the blanks in the “Language Model” section of the handout. Then correct answers (as a class).

3. Writing (15-20 min): In the “Think Time” section of the handout, students will write a talk about their own “Perfect Date”.

4. Shadowing (15-20 min): JTE and ALT will demonstrate how to shadow. Alternatively, or in addition, a student can say what they did that morning (in Japanese) and ALT tries to shadow (in Japanese). Then students will get into two lines facing each other (JTE or ALT may need to be in line if there is not an even number of students). They will shadow their first partner for 90 sec, and then switch partners. They will shadow their second partner for 75 sec, switch, and third partner for 60. Students will probably finish their talk before the time is up so beforehand it is a good idea to tell them to repeat the talk until the timer goes off. They should try to say it the second (third, etc) time with fewer pauses. Also for higher level students, they can try saying their talk without looking at their papers.

5. Summary/Wrap up (5 min)

NOTES:

• This lesson plan and handout is adapted from English Firsthand Success by M. Helgesen, S. Brown and John Wiltshier. © 2007 Longman Asia.

• The “Think Time” activity was very difficult for my students. At a minimum, “useful phrases” could be added to the handout or written on the board (or by leaving up the words from chalk baton). With my lower level students I wrote sentences for them on the board, leaving only key words for them to decide. E.g. “The girl/boy on my date is ______ and __________.” “We go to the _________ (beach, movies, ski resort, etc).” Etc.)

• There are different ways to shadow. The easiest is the speaker speaks at normal speeds with several pauses. Meanwhile the listener repeats what she hears verbatim. If the listener can’t keep up, the speaker can add more pauses but shouldn’t repeat what was said until they finish the whole talk. For higher level students, the listener can shadow by repeating the last part of a sentence and adding a question or comment (similar to a normal conversation). The speaker should ignore the questions/comments. E.g. Speaker: “We went to the beach.” Listener: “…the beach—how fun!” Another alternative, the listener would change what they repeat so the subject is “you”. E.g. Listener: “You went to the beach”.

• The lesson in John Wiltshier’s book was about “The Perfect Family”. This lesson could be adapted to many other topics like “my favorite foods”, “My dream job”, etc.

WORKSHEETS and HANDOUTS:

The worksheet for this lesson is here