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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 1; February 1999

Lesson outlines

LESSON 1: TALKING TO MYSELF
Level: Lower intermediate to advanced
Time: 25-35 minutes
Purpose:

To stimulate a flow of talk about inner processes, following a period of intra-personal thought.
Preparation:

None.

Lesson outline:

  1. Dictate the following text, after making clear to the students that the "I" in the text is them, not you.

    When do I talk to myself, mostly?

    When did I last talk to myself?

    Where do I talk to myself? Are there special places and situations?

    How, physically, do I talk to myself? Do my lips move?

    Do I talk to myself, or to other people in my head?

    Do I talk inside my head simultaneously while I am talking to real people outside?

    Do I sometimes rehearse a future situation?

    Do I go over in my mind a situation I have just lived through?

    WRITE TWO QUESTIONS OF YOUR OWN

    Am I nice to myself or tough?

    Do people ever try and interrupt my inner monologue or dialogue?

    Do I spend more time in external conversation or in internal dialogue?

    Do I ever talk to myself in English?

    Do I ever talk to flowers, the wind, plants or animals in English?

    How much have I talked to myself during this dictation?

  2. Group the students in threes to share with each other their answers to the questions.


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LESSON 2: TELLING STORIES TO GET STORIES TOLD
Level: Elementary to advanced
Time: 40-50 minutes
Purpose:

To teach the vocabulary of a chosen lexical area as students come to need the words. To get students telling their own stories.
Preparation:

Go to class ready to tell the students about three memorable meals you have lived through.

Lesson outline:

  1. Tell the story of your three memorable meals. As you do so, fill the board with words you need to use in your tellling that you know they don't know.

  2. Ask each student to think of three meals s/he remembers for some strong reason. Give them thinking time.

  3. Ask two or three students to tell a memorable meal each. Help them with vocabulary and add this to the words already on the board.

  4. They work in fours and tell their meal stories.

  5. Ask each student to write half a page about the most interesting meal he has heard spoken about.

  6. Each student gives their writing to the person whom they heard the story from.
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