英語ノート
EigoNoto.com

Gr. 6-6 I want to go to Italy!
Lesson Focus- Making a speech
EigoNoto.com Additions: I Want To Go To Italy Chant; Teachers’ speeches; Vocabulary students want to know
Life Long Learning Skill: Listen and Repeat the Pattern
Additional/Alternate Activities: EigoNoto.com Chant; Teachers’ speeches; Speech making in pairs and small groups; volunteers only in front of the whole class.

Book 2 Lesson 6,  I want to go to Italy! finishes in lesson 4 with students making short speeches about what country they want to visit, and why. Speech making was a very important part of my language study. Experience tells me that practice, both listening and speaking, is important in developing this skill.

Based on the goal of the final lesson, this looks like a difficult lesson for lower level students, or students who have no experience speaking English.


In addition, the first 3 listening activities contain a lot of language that is not used in the example speeches given in the final listening activities. In the first 3 lessons, the students also don’t have a chance to speak or practice what they’ll be required to say in the final lesson. And the ‘chant’ has a beat, but none of the other qualities that make a good chant. In fact, this is the Eigo Noto chant I use in training as an example of a bad chant.

Considering these points, I think there are several ways the contents of Eigo Noto Lesson 6 can be improved. I have added Teachers’ Speeches to each of the lessons. This should give students clear guidelines regarding what kind of speech they should be making, and also help HRTs build English speech making confidence. The chant also needs simplification, so I have rewritten it to ‘I want to go to OO/eat OO/see OO/play OO.’ The Janken 4’s activities at the beginning of the 4 classes will also review and practice the patterns used in the students’ speeches: 1-I like OO. 2-I can OO. 3-I want to eat/see/play OO./go to OO. Repitition, practice and review, and a narrowed range of language patterns, are my goals in this revision.

The EigoNoto.com lesson plans will also include countries’ flags, country names the students already know, and ask the students for reasons they want to visit these countries. The Life Long Learning Skill Listen and Repeat the Pattern will also be made explicit, and used and practiced throughout the lessons.

The final lesson, when students make their speeches, suggests speech making in this format:

• First in pairs;
• Second, in small groups.

And, while students are speaking or listening in the above 2 activities, students in turn will be asked to come in front of the ALT or HRT and say his or her speech. Students who can will say their speeches. Students who can’t will have the option of Listening and Repeating the Pattern with the teacher. This is an activity that will be modeled and done in class throughout the previous 3 lessons, so students should be familiar with the activity.

Finally, volunteers can make speeches in front of the whole class.

These groupings for speech making allow students to practice their speeches many times, not just once in front of the class (practice and repitition). Doing the speeches in small groups, and in front of a teacher, also lessens the stress for students, who typically don’t like standing in front of the class to make speeches (Eigo Noto lessons are not supposed to make students dislike English, right?!). Lastly, only students with the confidence to volunteer are asked to make speeches in front of the class. In the case that no students volunteer, a free-moving pairs activity can be substituted, so students can continue to practice speech making, but only with partners they choose. Or, volunteers could have the option of doing their speech with the aid of the teacher in the Listen and Repeat the Pattern format.

The goal of Lesson 6 is quite high for many students. With the simple goal that ‘all students feel a sense of accomplishment in the final activity,’ I think these changes will lower the bar (and the stress) for many students, and better prepare them all to succeed.