To Believe or Not to Believe--Attitude toward Superstitions 國立宜蘭高中 林書毅/楊惠雯 臺北市立內湖高中 張雅婷 Abstract The lesson plan is designed for 10th graders to learn about superstitions in different cultures and form a proper attitude towards them. The lesson plan can be divided into four parts—warm-up activity, vocabulary, reading and structure analysis, and sentence patterns. First, students have a glimpse of famous western superstitions from a funny yet informative cartoon. Next, the four-leaf clover match game is carried out to enhance students’ understanding of the vocabulary that will be used in further discussion. The game also serves as a cognitive check and a way to form groups. Then, the graphic-organization activity helps students get familiar with the text and structure. Students are guided to compare superstitions in Western and Eastern cultures. Finally, students learn to do researches on superstitions and use sentence patterns in context. Each group forms information gaps by providing causal sentence-embedded hints for other groups to guess the corresponding superstition-related customs. Through collaborative learning, meaningful communication, multi-intelligence exercises, reading strategies, and critical thinking, students will learn to actively express themselves in English, reflect upon superstitions in daily life as well as respect cultural differences. Objectives 1.

Students will be motivated to understand the origins and practice of superstitions in Eastern and Western cultures.

2.

Students will be able to respect cultural differences with an open attitude. 1

3.

Students will capture the main idea and structure of the text.

4.

Students will utilize reading strategies to facilitate and enhance reading process as well as comprehension.

5.

Students will be familiar with the vocabulary for production.

6.

Students will learn the sentence patterns and use them to achieve real communication.

Grade Level This lesson plan aims at freshmen in senior high school with low-intermediate to intermediate proficiency of English. Students’ BCT (Basic Competence Test) PR value is around 70 to 90. Time Required Four hours in total. Please see Teaching Procedure for detailed time arrangement. Materials 1. Video clip: Popeye episode 224, I Don’t Scare, 1956. 2. Handouts: (1) Four-leaf clover match game for vocabulary (Appendix 1 & 2) (2) Text: paragraph 3 and 4 (Appendix 3) (3) Alternative graphic organizer for text structure (Appendix 4) (4) More on American superstitions worksheet for patterns in use (Appendix 5) 3. Textbook (SanMin book 2, Unit 6 A Rabbit’s Foot and a Piece of Wood) 2

4. Laptop and projector Teaching Procedure Period 1

Activity Warm-up

Teaching procedure 1. Bring out the theme and

Time 15’

Material Video— I Don’t Scare

keyword—superstition. Have students share the superstitions that they know. 2. Briefly introduce the characters in the video—I Don’t Scare—and then ask students to find out the superstitions in the video. 3. After watching the video, have students tell the class the superstitions they found in the video. 4. Ask students the questions below and have them share their opinions: (1) Do you believe in the superstitions and why? (2) How would you react to the superstitions? Vocabulary

1. Go through the vocabulary of the unit with students. 2. Distribute each student one part of 3

20’

1. Textbook (p.108~114) 2. Four-leaf

the four-leaf clover. (Appendix 1)

clovers

3. Have students find out their group

(Appendix 1)

member (i.e. match the vocabulary,

3. Worksheet

its Chinese translation, its English

(Appendix 2)

definition, and its related example sentence together.) 4. After students find their group members, ask each group to get the worksheets (Appendix 2) from the teacher and glue the four-leaf clovers on it. 5. Have students work with their group members to underline the collocation of the assigned vocabulary. 6. Introduce the vocabulary and have each group talk about the collocation of the word. Wrap-up

1. Lead students to review the vocabulary they covered. 2. Collect the worksheet.

4

5’

Worksheet

Students watched the video together.

Students worked on the clover-matching task.

Period 2

Activity Warm-up

Teaching procedure

Time

1. Lead students to read the vocabulary

3’

aloud. Reading 1

Material Textbook (p.108~114)

1. Give students comprehension questions as below and have them 5

15’

Textbook (p.104)

read the first paragraph aloud to find the answers. (1) Who was the writer talking to? (2) Why was the writer so excited? 2. Direct students’ attention to the picture of a wedding in the book and ask them why the bridesmaids dress as beautifully as the bride. 3. Ask students to skim paragraph 2 and find out the reason. 4. Explain sentences that students have difficulty in understanding. Reading & 1. Have students work in the group Structure

they formed earlier. Read the

Analysis

handout (Appendix 3) and find the

25’

(Appendix 3) 2. Worksheet

examples in them.

(Appendix 4)

2. Have students draw the superstitions in the reading and summarize the reading to explain their drawings (Appendix 4). Wrap-up

1. Handout

1. Randomly select four groups to write the sentences corresponding to the four examples. 2. Give students feedback on the sentences. 6

7’

3. Collect the worksheet.

Reading the paragraphs together, students drew and summarized the examples on the worksheet.

Period Activity

Teaching procedure

Time

Material

3

1. Bring students’ attention back to the

2’

Textbook

Warm-up

paragraphs they read. Have students talk about the four superstitions in the reading. 2. Write down the keywords regarding 7

(p.104~106)

the superstitions on the blackboard. Reading & 1. Explain the difficult parts of the Structure Analysis

20

reading.

Textbook (p.104~106)

2. Discuss the structure of the reading to students. 3. Lead students to discuss the cultural differences behind each customs and the proper attitude towards superstitions.

Grammar

1. Introduce the grammar points in the

13’

unit.

Power Point (See the

2. Use the pictures in the video—I Don’t Scare as a context to practice

pictures below)

the grammar. Wrap-up

1. Assign students homework to find out 5’ The origins of the superstitions on the worksheets (Appendix 5) and use the target sentence patterns to explain why people do them.

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Worksheet (Appendix 5)

Teachers elicited the four examples from students to review and also drew the structure of the article.

Teachers showed students the pictures in the video—I don’t scare, and had students use the sentences patterns—“…because…”, and ” the reason why”—to finish the sentences which explain the cause and effect relationship.

Period 4

Activity

Teaching procedure

Warm-up

1. Write down the 11 different superstitions on the blackboard and make sure students know all the 9

Time 5’

Material

words. 2. Erase the words on the board. Grammar,

1. Divide the 11 superstitions into two

Writing &

sections and do the following

Guessing

activity in 2 rounds.

30’

2. Power Point

2. Have students write down the sentence they made on the board to explain why people do certain superstition. 3. Invite students to check the sentences on the board to see if there are any grammatical mistakes. 4. Show students the pictures of the superstitions and have the rest of the students match the sentence with the picture. 5. Students can get extra point for their groups if they get the correct answer. Speaking

1. Have students work in pairs. Talk

10’

about their own personal experience to get good luck or to avoid bad luck and why they do it. Wrap-up

1. Ask students questions to lead them think about respect for cultural differences and the appropriate 10

1. Worksheet

5’

attitude toward superstitions. (1) When facing the superstitions you don’t believe, what would you do? Why? (2) How would you react when others challenge your belief? Why?

Students wrote their sentences of the homework on the board and teachers had the rest of the students guess.

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Suggestions In order to let both the teacher and students benefit the most from this lesson plan of effective teaching, specific suggestions are listed as the following. 1. Make full preparation before the four-leaf clover match game in the first period. The clover match game is an effective way for students to practice pronunciation and check their understanding towards definitions and collocations of new words. However, students might lose their clover leaves during the activity because they have to walk around. Teachers are advised to put twin adhesive on the back of the clover before the activity starts so students can paste the leaves onto their worksheets as soon as they finished the task. If time is allowed, teachers can let students make the clovers. 2. The four-leaf clover game may always be adjusted according to the number of students in one class. In this lesson plan, the class consists of forty-four students, so the teacher picks eleven important new words out of the twenty-two ones listed in the textbook. Then, eleven clovers are cut into four parts respectively. If there are fewer than 44 students in one class, the teacher can still carry out the game and form groups by simply cutting the clover in half or selecting fewer words from the textbook. 3. Provide each group with a copy of the text without pictures at the beginning of the second period. Students should fully understand the content of the article through discussion and then exert abilities such as observation and organization to write down a summary. Since the textbook contains photos and explanation for each paragraph, teachers are strongly advised to firstly, ask students to put away their textbooks and secondly, distribute copies 12

of the text with only words on them so as to prevent students from simply copying or being confined by notes and illustrations.

Sample pictures from SanMin book 2, Unit 6.

What’s more, students would truly gather together to read and exchange ideas with only one copy of the reading material on hand. Or students might resort to each one’s own book and finish the activity without any meaningful communication. 4. Assist students to do the correction during the grammar activity in the fourth period. After each group has written their sentences on the blackboard, the teacher is advised to circle the grammar mistakes and guide the student to correct his writing by saying, “Please pay attention to the preposition” or “Which one suits the clause here, ‘Because’ or ‘Because of’?” The student can ask other group members or the whole class for help. The teacher should be the last one to step in and modify the sentence. 5. Give additional hints when necessary during the grammar activity. If teachers find that students have a hard time identifying certain superstitions via written hints, additional illustrations and gestures done by group members are good ways to solve the problem. Or, teachers may list out all the superstitions on the blackboard and let students to do matching. The ultimate goals of this activity are for students to practice sentence patterns in context and know more about superstitions in different cultures. Therefore, students should be allowed to use various ways to communicate in order to let the 13

activity go smoothly and achieve effective learning instead of being stuck in the guessing process. Assessment There are five activities from which teachers may evaluate teaching efficiency and students’ learning results. The assessment is done when students accomplish oral, written tasks and do presentations. 1. Popeye video clip—initial assessment Serving as a warm-up activity, the video clip which is followed by Q&A session can help the teacher check students’ former knowledge of and attitude toward superstitions. 2. Four-leaf clover match game—formative assessment Students’ understanding toward the new words is evaluated via this match game. They have to keep the words’ English definition, Chinese translation, and collocation usages in mind in order to successfully finish the activity. Correct pronunciation of the words is also emphasized since students need to talk to each other before they find the right leaves to match a clover. 3. Alternative graphic organizer for text structure—formative assessment Reading strategies, comprehension, and group working skills are mainly assessed in this activity. Students have to use various techniques, such as skimming, scanning, analyzing, and organizing so as to summarize two paragraphs and show the connection among the four superstitions. In addition, students are encouraged to draw pictures which represent the superstition-based customs mentioned in the article. If students can finish this activity on their own, it means that they are able to understand 14

the gist of the text as well as grasp the meaning of new words and phrases. 4. Superstitions worksheet for patterns in use—formative assessment Though the usage of causal sentence patterns is embedded in this activity, students have to firstly exert their searching and summarizing skills so they can explain the assigned custom in brief. Then, students write down hints about the custom on the blackboard. An information gap is thus formed. After students correct the grammar mistakes in each other’s sentences, they have to communicate and make a right guess. 5. In-class observation—formative assessment Being an observer as well, teachers find that students are strongly motivated by this lesson plan. First of all, the warm-up activity has generated their interest in superstition-related topics and then students are led to discover superstitions in their own life. Even those who seldom give response in class are willing to participate in activities and talk in English. When students encounter problems communicating, they would resort to body language or pictures to express themselves and do correction. This active attitude to use language and understand cultural differences is highly valued in teaching. Reflection Traditional EFL teaching approaches, such as grammar-translation and lecturing, do equip students with basic skills, but they sometimes bring frustration to both teachers and students, especially in a classroom with many less motivated low achievers with little motivation. To improve a learning atmosphere like this, we tried to integrate different learning activities in our classrooms and keep students busy. Instead of just sitting in class and dozing off, students were seen to get highly 15

involved in the learning activities and get a better understanding of what they had learned. Based on students performance and response, we find the project rewarding. 1. Collaborative learning Teaching English in a community-based high school is no easy task, especially when the participants in English classes are of different proficiency levels. What makes English teaching even more difficult is that teachers have to instruct students whose PR value ranges from 70 to 90 at a time. A possible solution to this problem is to assist teaching with collaborative learning. In sorting out the collocations of words in use, and in summarizing a topic to each paragraph, relatively high achievers assisted low achievers in team work. Additionally, team work helps lower the affective filter—reducing students’ pressure of finishing a worksheet alone—and thus promote every student’s performance and sense of achievement. 2. Hands-on learning Variety is the spice of life, and it is also the case of teaching and learning. After traditional approaches have equipped students with the ability to do self-study, it’s time for students to do it on their own. That is the reason why we challenge students by asking them to study in groups and help their teammates with what to pay attention to after group discussion. Besides, based on the theory of learning pyramid (Dale 1969), retention after learning is higher when learners really experience it than when they just listen to teachers’ lecturing. Group discussion and practice by doing can enhance learning retention up to 70 percent (See Graphic 1). Through participating active hands-on learning themselves, students did display a better understanding and a deeper imprint 16

of what they have learned in mind. We found the project rewarding when we saw less motivated students spoke up, actively participated in group discussion, and handed in the assignments on time.

Graphic 1. Rates of learning retention based on different learning activities 3. Multiple intelligences developing Language and culture are key objectives in English learning. In addition to words, this can be done with the facilitation of visual aids. When analyzing the structure of an article, students had been taught to summarize the topic of each paragraph and to present the outline in a graphic organizer. In this unit, they were asked to do it in an alternative way—drawing pictures with an explanation below to illustrate the main idea of each paragraph. Those who are good at manipulating words and those who are good at realizing their mental images were helping each other in team work. This not only gives a chance to those with different intelligence types (Gardner 1993) to contribute to learning, but also facilitate the learning of verbal and visual learners. Aside from written tests, other approaches, such as listening comprehension, reading skills, oral presentation, performance tests, and research conduction, are also included in this lesson plan so as to help student develop different abilities. 17

4. Research ability cultivating If high school education is a preparation for college education, then it is a good time to cultivate their abilities in learning in a team and doing research on their own. As a wrap-up activity to check their learning of sentence patterns of this unit, each team was asked to conduct a research on another western superstition on their own. They had to look for the origin of a long-practiced superstition by surfing the Internet and sorting out the most supported saying among all the accurate and somewhat incorrect information. In the following period of class, the students shared their research results with the whole class and the teachers helped confirm and clarify their discovery, or provide further information to these superstitions. 5. Critical thinking After reaching goals of cognitive learning, students are expected to achieve more in affective learning. Students were challenged with superstition-related questions in order to sharpen their critical thinking. With teachers’ guidance, students discussed their opinions toward superstitions and came up with conclusions as follows: (1) As time goes by, gender-biased superstitions should be challenged and scrutinized. (2) Whether or not we agree with superstitious beliefs, we should respect different cultures, and respect other people’s free will to choose their religion and beliefs (3) When it comes to superstitions involving sacrificing other creatures’ life, we should come up with an alternative to avoid unnecessary killing.

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Reference 1. Books Dale, Edgar (1969). Audiovisual Methods in Teaching. New York: Dryden Press. Gardner, Howard (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books. Harry Collis (1998).101 American Superstitions: Understanding Language and Culture through Superstitions. Lincolnwood, Ill., USA. 2. Websites http://sangi.sanguinarius.org/creative/OriginsOfPopularSuperstitions.pdf (western superstitions) http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary.html (western superstitions alphabetic-ordered) http://www.worldweddingtraditions.com/ (wedding-related superstitions) http://www.yourwedding101.com/wedding-basics/popular-wedding-traditions.aspx (wedding-related superstitions) http://voices.yahoo.com/everyday-chinese-superstitions-322849.html (Chinese superstitions)

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Appendix 1: Four-leaf clover match game for vocabulary

20

Appendix 2: Clover match game worksheet

21

Students’ work on the clover match game

22

Appendix 3: paragraph 3~4 A superstition is a belief that one event results in—or prevents—another, when the two are in no way related. Take a rabbit’s foot, for example. Have you ever thought about the reason why a rabbit’s foot is considered lucky in many Western countries? One saying is that rabbits, unlike most other animals, touch the ground with their back feet first when they are running. Westerners, thus, consider this fact unusual and even magical. However, this superstition is not based on any scientific proof. Similarly, Americans usually say “Knock on wood” or actually do this for good luck, since they want to prevent tree spirits from affecting their luck. It’s clear that these are just two situations where people superstitiously associate one event with another. Aside from superstitions for good luck, some more long-practiced customs have grown out of fears that are related to superstitions. Superstition-based customs are what most members of a society usually do to deal with the unknown. In Taiwan, for instance, the word for the number “four” sounds like the word for “death.” Because of its association with death, the number four has long been considered an unlucky number by Taiwanese. The reason why people in the West often say “Bless you” when a person sneezes is also superstition-based. This phrase is used because some Westerners used to believe that devils might enter one’s body when a person sneezes.

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Appendix 4: Alternative graphic organizer for text structure

24

Students’ work on the graphic organizer

25

Appendix 5: More on American superstitions worksheet for patterns in use

26

Students wrote their sentences of the homework on the board and teachers had the rest of the students guess. 27

Appendix 6: Pictures used in the grammar activity

28

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