"Over the Hedge" driving me over the edge...

Today didn’t start off on the right foot… Ms. Hong came in looking a bit downcast and told me that the mid-term wasn’t hard enough to qualify students to be admitted to the International High School. There shouldn’t be more than 4% of the students with a 100 (which in case of our school should be 15 students). However, 24 students scored a 100 and so they won’t qualify to go to the international high school that they had been preparing for over two years. I feel partly responsible because I had to make up 7 questions on the exam. Actually, the Korean teachers thought my questions were too hard so they made it easier. That was a mistake… Anyway, so we had to be nitpicky to mark down their grades. This was another problem… Many students erred on this question.

A: What’s wrong with Mark? He is sleeping.

B: He must ________________________

A: Oh, I see.

The answer is supposed to be “He must have stayed up late”

But students wrote all kinds of answers. We decided to mark “He must have been tired” wrong. It made sense to me except that the Korean teachers said it was okay to say this and gave these as examples during class. I can only imagine the students’ confusion and frustration. Ms. Hong told me I should be ready to back it up should there be any complaints from parents and gave me some delicious cookies (shouldn’t that count as bribery?)

So in trying to work out the questions, my first two third grade classes were canceled. That threw me off, because I needed to teach the third graders before to gauge the students’ understanding and to test the time allotment. The first class I taught was class 1-10. The class came in 10 minutes late. They didn’t have my class for two weeks so they went to their class instead of coming to the English classroom. That made me rush because I knew I was pressed for time.

 This was my original plan... 

Student Profile: Third grade girls aged 16. There are about 40 students in the class. Third graders are divided into 2 groups: Low-Intermediate and Intermediate-Advanced.  This is the Intermediate-Advanced class and their English level ranges from Novice-High to Intermediate-High.

Target Language Content
	New	Recycled
Grammar	None	None
Vocabulary	summon, couch potato, guilt, transportation vehicle, worship, portal , pie hole, piñata, stove, cooler, treadmill	None
Pronunciation	vehicle	None
Function	Listening to authentic English	None
Task	-Fill in the blanks -Matching word to definition -Labeling pictures and description - Matching game -Find someone who…	-Fill in the blanks -Matching word to definition -Labeling pictures and description - Matching game -Find someone who

Terminal Objectives:

1. For students to practice listening to authentic English used in the animated movie,     "Over the Hedge."

2. For students to learn new vocabulary words related to the scene.

Enabling Objectives :

1.       Students will be prepared to watch the video and understand the content by filling in the blanks of the dialogue before watching it.

2.       The students will understand the meaning of some of the difficult words by matching the new vocabulary words with their definitions.

3.       Teacher will check students’ comprehension by having students label the words with the correct pictures or with the description

4.       Students will review the vocabulary by playing the Matching Game and Find Someone Who…

Personal Objectives :

1.       To reduce the number of times I say “okay,” by substituting it with another word.

2.       To give students longer wait time after asking a question.

3.       To make input more comprehensible by chunking.

Assessment of Terminal Objectives –

1.       To  evaluate whether the students understood the meaning of the watched video clip, teacher will have  students complete the fill in the blanks.

1. This is a device to summon food- ___________________.

2. This is one of the many voices of food- _________________.

3. This is the portal for the passing of the food- __________________.

4. This is one of the many food transportation vehicles-_______________.

5. This gets the food hot- ________________.

6. This keeps the food cold- __________________.

7. This is what you hit with a stick to get food or candy- _________________.

8. This is the *altar where we worship food- __________________.

9. This is what we eat when we’ve eaten too much food- ________________.

10. This gets rid of the guilt so we can eat more food- _________________.

11. Gleaming, silver cans- _______________.

*altar- a table where sacrifices are offered

       

2.       For assessment of T.O. 2, the teacher will have students play the Matching Game in groups. Each member in the group will call out 2 numbers on the board with 20 numbers. If the word or picture behind the number matches, their team gets a point.

Anticipated Difficulties/Solutions: There might not be enough time to finish the activities.

Timetable fit/Assumptions: The students had a lesson on “going to the doctor” before their mid-term exams.  This week’s lesson has no bearing on the previous lesson because it is based on the animation, “Over the Hedge.” Some lessons are reviewed and carried over for another week. Most lessons however, are not related to the previous or future lessons because it is the job of the native English teacher to expose students to as many different types of situations or circumstances as possible. In order to do so, the themes change on a weekly basis. Also, because of special events, some classes get canceled and are not made up. Hence, it is difficult to keep track of which class had which lesson.

How it actually went...

 Both my terminal objectives turned out to be a complete flop. I knew because either the students weren’t paying attention to the video or (This is when my Korean comes in handy) they kept saying “Where are the subtitles?” in Korean. The fact that the room was too bright and took us another 10 minutes to pull down the shades didn’t help… When I asked them if they understood, only two students nodded their heads. That’s obvious because they didn’t understand any of the words. As I was walking around, I noticed that they hadn’t done the matching of the new vocabulary words. I had barely started the matching game when the bell rang. I think I need more time for this lesson, but I can’t split this lesson up because then there are not enough activities for the next class. I think this lesson is too advanced for the first graders… I am not sure how to make this lesson easier. I’ve simplified it enough.

-I have to cut down on the warm-up. I am going to have to skip the greetings (I’ll greet the students that come in before the bell and have some small talk with them, but once the bell rings I’m just going to cut to the chase.)

-I should explain the term “transportation vehicle” by just giving examples: “Trains, buses, boats, etc.”

-I should explain the term “worship” by asking them, “where do you go to worship?” and gesturing the act of praying.

I can’t throw out the baby out with the bathwater though…

It was helpful to explain the word “hedge” and to explain to them that “over the hedge” is a story about animals going over the hedge to steal food from humans. It activated their schema and made their fill in the blanks easier. Most of them were able to complete this section of the handout.

-Having pictures of the words really helped.

-I don’t remember saying “okay” (I even bit my tongue in trying to stop myself from saying it)

Overall, the downside of the activity is that there isn’t much interaction between the students and with me. The upside is that the few students who were paying attention were able to pick up some new words and to watch the video clip and understand it without the subtitles.