teachingactivities

Rhythm of English

Page history last edited by David Van Ommen 3 yrs ago

The Rhythm of English

Nick Lange

GRADE LEVEL:	JHS 2nd-3rd year
SKILLS:	Speaking, Listening
TIME:	~35-40 minute Lesson
MATERIALS:	Attached handout, chalkboard, and a video clip of connected English at natural speed (optional)
OBJECTIVES:	To give the kids a hands-on demo of how connected speech works in English
	To lay the groundwork for things like syllables, intonation, etc

PROCEDURE:

1. Tell the kids that today they are going to learn how to speak English at Natural Speed.

2. If you have a video clip, show the students. Ask them how many of them watch movies and ask them if they understand what’s going on? (Here’s a hint: most of them don’t.)

3. Explain (in English) that in English when we speak we stress the important words and compress (or omit) the unimportant words / sounds.

4. Pass out the attached handout and let the students digest the Japanese on the page.

5. Either by yourself or with your JTE’s help, read out the Japanese again for the kids and make sure everyone in is in agreement.

6. Proceed to utter “I want to speak a lot of English” at natural speed (it should pop out as “I wanna speak alata English”).

7. Ask your students to write down exactly what you said, check to see if anyone got it / award a prize to anyone that caught it.

8. Now, it’s time for the meat of the lesson.

9. Say “1, 2, 3, 4” clapping your hands on the numbers.

10. Ask the students to repeat and do the same.

11. Progress to “One and Two and Three and Four,” clapping on the numbers.

12. Ask the students to repeat and do the same.

13. Slowly progress through the various levels of the first block of text, clapping on the numbers, and connecting the middle parts. The students should be ok up through level 3. Level 4 will prove a challenge, but that’s half the fun.

14. Your eventual goal is to work with the students through all four levels of text consecutively.

15. After the first block of text, proceed to the second block run through the same procedure.

16. After finishing, depending on what year the students are, you can proceed to show examples of connected, natural speech that they can use.

NOTES:

I’ve also used the lesson with first years and they had a lot of fun. It depends on the level of your first years. Unfortunately, I’ve also recreated this procedure from memory so it might be slightly off. Don’t be afraid to change it for your class! The whole point of the lesson is to have fun studying about English and not actually study any English. You might also point out that connected speech is something they should naturally integrate into their own speaking patterns as they become more comfortable speaking English. They should really be walking before they try to run, figuratively speaking.

HANDOUTS and WORKSHEETS:

The worksheet for this lesson can be found here: http://storage01.pbwiki.com/f/Rhythm_of_English_wrksht.doc