Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Faculty of Education
Department of English Language and Literature
Brno 2007
Affirmation:
I declare that I have worked on my thesis by myself and that all the sources of
information I have used are listed in the bibliography.
I agree to have the work put in the library of the Pedagogical Faculty of the
Masaryk University and using it for study purposes.
.. ...
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I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mgr. Gabriela Oaklandov for her
helpful guidance and comments on my work.
CONTENT
I. INTRODUCTION...6
II. THEORETICAL PART8
1 Children and fairy-tales..8
1.1 Value of fairy-tales8
1.2 Characteristics of 7-11 years old children.9
1.2.1 Teaching younger school aged children...9
1.2.2 Language development....10
2 Story-telling and primary skills.12
2.1 Story-telling in the classroom...12
2.2 Listening...12
2.2.1 Listening to stories at home.13
2.2.2 Listening to stories at school13
2.3 Speaking16
2.3.1 Dialogue and role play.16
2.3.2 Paraphrasing and repetition..17
2.3.3 Vocabulary and grammar.18
2.3.4 Pronunciation...18
2.4 Fluency in speaking and listening.19
3 Grouping the children21
3.1 Groupwork and pairwork .21
3.2 Whole class 22
4 Motivation through story-telling24
4.1 Young learners and motivation.24
5 Classroom management and the atmosphere in the class..26
5.1 Secure atmosphere26
5.2 Variety in the classroom.. 26
5.3 Choose of activities..27
III. PRACTICAL PART28
1 THE TEACHERS BOOK........28
1.1 UNIT 1..29
1.2 UNIT 2..31
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I. INTRODUCTION
The subject of this bachelor thesis is to present ideas and possibilities how to use
original English fairy-tale for teaching Czech pupils at Czech schools. It is based on
one of the well-known fairy-tale The Little Red Riding Hood.
The aim is to prove that fairy-tales are not for babies and little children, but for
children of all age as well as for adults. There is an effort to show students that learning
English does not mean only to work with students book, to fill exercises and drill
vocabulary. The usage of English fairy-tale can work as a medium how to make the
pupils interested in learning foreign language by presenting it in a motivating, creative,
pleasurable and communicative way. The teacher can make pupils through using a
fairy-tale that language provides a lot of possibilities for entertaining learning.
This bachelor thesis should present a teaching method using traditional fairy-tale
during English lessons for motivating children, making them participate without a fear
or stress.
The theoretical part deals with and discuss the basis of theory teacher should be
aware of when teaching children. Skills that they acquire at basic schools are described
here with the emphasis to primary skills (listening and speaking). The development of
these two skills during listening fairy-tales is one of the most important themes of this
bachelor thesis. It deals with the psychology of children for whom the fairy-tale is
addressed as well as with motivation of children and explains why the fairy-tale could
be beneficial for motivation as well as a good opportunity to explain grammatical
structures. Atmosphere and peaceful environment in the class has the importance within
the process of learning, so they have the important role in this work too and are
discussed here.
The practical part is conceived as a teachers book and it can be used as a teaching
plan. It has been divided into 6 units and every unit is dealing with an adequately long
part of the text of the fairy-tale, usually two or three pages. There are several
methodological principles used in every unit with the focus on listening, speaking,
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Young children are usually very active, especially physically, thus it can be very
difficult for some to keep sitting in the class and paying attention. Their degree and
length of attention may be increased when the teacher manipulates with their feelings,
e.g. by provoking surprise, astonishment. The life of the children covers up school work
(school, writing homework, out-of-school activities) and playing (hobbies, games).
Learning becomes gradually the main activity. When the teacher links or combines it
with playing, their learning process can be more effective.
Children can work separately and rely only on their own abilities, but they are able
to cooperate with others, work in pairs or in small groups. They can learn from each
other. In the cases of working in groups they should be supervised, controlled and
corrected by the teacher if necessary. They are mature enough to distinguish between
fairness and unfairness, make some decisions about teachers acting, evaluating, and also
about their learning process. (Scott, Ytreberg, 4, 15 )
The conceptions are not constant, but they are specified with other learning. They
know what is considered to be good and bad and the school helps them to create their
moral consciousness. They are often cheerful, they easily enthuse with something and
they need to convey their new pieces of knowledge to others. They pick up experiences,
search for more information than they heard at school, and try to fulfil their desire for
knowledge. (p, Mare, 229, 230)
1.2.2 Language development
Scott, Ytreberg characterise the language development of eight to ten years old
children by stating that these children are competent users of their mother tongue and
they know the basic rules of grammar and syntax in their own language. But they do not
analyze the language; therefore it is not essential to teach them grammar rules. By the
age of ten children can understand abstracts and symbols. The ability of generalising and
systematising begins to develop. This refers to childrens general language development
and most of eight to ten years old children have some kind of language awareness and
readiness which they bring with them into the foreign language classroom. There are
many similarities between learning ones mother tongue and learning a foreign language,
despite there are differences in age of children in which they start with learning language
and the time available for learning, because they are only few our a week available to
them. (Scott, Ytreberg, 4, 6)
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2.2 Listening
It is quite clear that listening is the first skill that children acquire, especially if they
have not learnt to read yet. When the children start to learn a foreign language, it
happens mainly through their ears and so their main source of the language is what they
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hear. That is why they can easily forget what has been said. If we speak about telling
stories, the teacher can either tell the story or read the story from the book. When the
children are listening to their teacher, who has now important role, because all the pupils
should understand the text, he has to tell/read clearly, and some parts have to be repeated.
Children have to concentrate very hard. Young children have a very short attention span,
but with increasing age they can sit still and listen for longer periods. Some listening
activities may cover some movement, children can move and/or create a noise. Other
activities can calm them down, make them concentrate, and create a peaceful
atmosphere. (Scott, Ytreberg, 22)
2.2.1 Listening to stories at home
Listening to stories is recommended by educationalists and psychologists as a part
of growing up for every child. Stories play a vital role in the childs development, and
the development of language as well. Using stories helps to create a friendly and secure
atmosphere. Story-telling may be established as a routine (e.g. teacher can include it into
his/her lesson plan ones a week, once a fortnight); the children then will get used to it
and it will be considered as natural and they will like it.
Listening to stories helps children to form their views about the world, people,
humans behaviour, human characters whether good or bad, and various life situations.
Children realize that not all the people are kind, there is also some kind of warning that
there exist vicious, cunning, grudging and malicious people who can hurt them, forsake
them or do them some harm if they are not careful enough or if they do not obey their
parents (The Little Red Riding Hood, Babes in the Wood and other fairy-tales). Children
are usually protected by their family and the people who love them, so reading fairy-tales
teaches them how to act in real life in order not to be hurt by wicked people.
2.2.2 Listening to stories at school
Listening to interesting and well-told stories is popular among most of people,
especially among younger learners. Short stories can be retold by the teacher in class in
her own words, which is probably the most natural story-telling situation. But sometimes
the spontaneous retelling does not need to be very useful and practical. When the story is
too long or too complex, then it is better to read it. In this case the story lacks some
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spontaneity, but gains on other counts: it may be more carefully constructed and better
expressed and the narrative may be more fluent and longer. The teacher can concentrate
on other aspects of the story, especially on some kind of drama. He/she can change the
tone and volume of the voice, add vocal and facial expressions and pauses. (Ur, 63)
Penny Ur further says that a little drama or humour can do a great deal towards arousing
interest (64).
Telling stories
Telling stories means to tell the story without a book in front of you. This has some
advantages e.g. that the teacher can adapt the language to children of all the levels,
he/she can go back and repeat some parts, and he/she can keep eye contact with pupils
most of the time. (Scott, Ytreberg, 29)
Ur sees the eye contact of the teacher with the class very important as well. to
know how they react and he/she should be constantly conscious of the probable response
of the students; he/she can add, omit or alter some information to suit to students level
of understanding, sense of humour, and so on. (Ur, 64)
Telling the story may be sometimes demanding work for the teacher, especially
when the story is more complicated, has many plots and more than one storyline.
Generally, divining the story into the sections may help to make it easier for the teacher
to remember the whole story. The example of a sequence:
Setting:
Episodes:
The traditional fairy tales are great for story-telling. They have a clear structure, so
it should not be the problem for the teacher to create a logical structure of the events
within the fairy-tale. Furthermore they are well known for the students in their mother
tongue, so everybody should understand, because they know the plot. Even if there is a
new vocabulary, children will not be lost, they can sometimes guess the meaning of
unknown words.
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Reading stories
Reading a story differs from telling a story in some aspects. When the teacher reads
the story, he/she should not change it at all. Reading a story is different from any other
activities, that need changes and varieties. The children, who listen to the same story for
several times, want it to be read word by word, they do not like changes. (Scott,
Ytreberg, 29)
Children of all ages love to be read to, and you should try to
spend as much time as possible reading to the eight to ten year olds
as well as to the younger group. For the older group it is often
good to have a continuing story so that you read a bit of the book
every time you see them. (Scott, Ytreberg, 30)
Scott and Ytreberg add that it is worth sometimes to let the children listen for the sake of
listening. Music and poetry or a short anecdote or story all have a role to play in the
classroom too, because they introduce new voices into the class, new varieties of
language, various situations when people communicate, different dialects and fields.
They conclude that the more children hear, the better they will be able to speak and
write.
When the teacher is reading a story he/she should not only read but make children
participate as much as possible and join many of their senses (Slattery, Willis, 96-101):
It is good to use the book with pictures or when telling the story use the whole body,
pantomime gestures and pictures.
Teacher can show them the real things that are mentioned in the story, he/she can use
puppets but it needs larger preparation before the lesson.
Producing sounds as things in the story is amusing. Children can imitate e.g. animals,
trains. Teacher can change the voice for indicating of figures.
Children can guess how the story will continue; the teacher can tell only one half of the
story and make them suggest their own continuing.
It is useful for remembering to repeat the key words and phrases or to write them on the
board. It will help children when they are asked to reconstruct some parts of the story.
After reading or telling the story teacher can ask the questions concerning the story: e.g.
which character do they like, why was somebody the hero, what would they do if they
were (some character from the story) etc.
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This type of activity may be very effective and children will like it. They will learn
from situations by acquisition and they can take some moral lessons from the stories,
especially from animal fables. This activity is also supporting for those who are shy. It
gives a lot of opportunities to participate.
2.3 Speaking
Speaking is most common and most often used mean of communication. It can be
the most demanding skill for the teacher to teach. Children are able to use their mother
tongue at high level, they can express their feelings and intentions, they can explore the
rules of their first language.
Story-telling can be useful when the teacher wants encouraged children in order to
speak. The story, they were listened to, may be the good source of various topic for
creating the conversation and other speaking activities. Story-telling can be possibility
for children to acquire some grammar rules used within the speaking.
There are many techniques and kinds of activities for improving speaking abilities
and communication in foreign language. Some of them are relating to story-telling.
Dialogues, role-plays, paraphrasing, repetition, practising vocabulary, and pronunciation
rang among them.
2.3.1 Dialogue and role play
By dialogue and role play the children learn how to communicate in various
situations. In role play especially, children are trying various roles and situations e.g. a
doctor, a shop assistant, a film star, a parent, or some fairytale character. The children
should improvise, not just reproduce the text, in order to develop communicational
abilities. It should be the aim to make children use their creativity and imagination. They
learn to speak everyday language in an entertaining way.
According to Byrne (91), a role play is excellent way that teaches children to use
language in a meaningful way and shows them that language is not just something said
but that it is accompanied by facial expressions, gestures and body movement of various
kinds.
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Scott and Ytreberg (40, 41) say that in real role play, the language used comes from
the pupils themselves, so they have to be acquainted with the language needed before.
They have more arguments why role play should be used as a routine or common
practice in the lessons; they say that pupils learn to ask as well as answer, use all the
other parts of speaking a language tone of voice, stress, intonation, etc. not just words.
Pupils can be encouraged to natural chat in the classroom, to making up dialogues
about the little things which have happened and which occupy them at that moment.
2.3.2 Paraphrasing and repetition
Paraphrasing is quite different from repetition which is a repeating of spoken or
written material in the same words as original and it can be used when the teacher is not
testing the real comprehension of some phrases or short text. Repetition may be very
time-consuming if the teacher wants to listen to each students answer separately, so it is
helpful in this situation to ask the students to write down what they have heard. The
teacher can check the written answer later.
Ur define paraphrasing as follows:
Paraphrase is reproduction of such a material in a
different form that is, using different words of the same
language to express the same ideas. Obviously, there is no
possibility here of mindless mimicry: on the contrary, the
teacher should be aware that paraphrase is a relatively difficult
exercise even for native speakers, and only intelligent and
fairly proficient students may be expected to do it successfully
and get useful practice thereby. (Ur, 129)
Paraphrasing has an important function in the process of teaching children. Ur points that
it is not the aim to make children create an accurate and elegant rewording, but the proof
that students have grasped the sense of what was said and they are able to repeat it in
other words without the changing of meaning. She continued that teachers in the
classrooms should not be always looking for the best paraphrasing. There is a distinction
between literary paraphrase which is done for the purpose of academic writing, and the
paraphrasing of the spoken word that is more useful for needs of the students of basic
schools and that is also done to check their general ability of comprehension (129-131).
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1)
the problem sounds can be singled out and practiced; it means that the teacher can
pick up short phrases from current work, isolate single words, practice a specific sound,
and then return to the practising of words and phrases altogether e.g. from suddenly she
saw a huge dog, to she saw a huge dog, to saw a huge dog, to a huge dog, to dog, then
rebuilding to a huge dog, to saw a huge dog, to she saw a huge dog, and finally suddenly
she saw a huge dog.
2)
the sounds can be practiced in several different positions in the phrase, so that the
students can recognize the effect of phrase stress on sounds, and of weak stress on
certain classes of words.
3)
the teacher can reduce some pronunciation problems by intensive practice which
means to move from identification of the sound (associated with aural discrimination of
similar sounds) to imitative production and autonomous production which should be
succeeded by a correct model. It means that children can produce the sound by
themselves, without hearing it first, and than they should listen to the desired
pronunciation. They need to be sensitized to the differences between their own
production and the right production.
Rehearsal: means that the teacher should organise kinds of activities in which
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the safety of the classroom, thereby they gain some level of confidence about their
conversational skill, and awareness of the function of English in reality.
2.
Feedback: the tasks where students are trying to use all and any language they can
function as a feedback for both students and teacher. Teachers need to know how their
classes are doing, if there are any problems, so that it is appropriate to use this method.
As for students, it is good way how to find out their deficiency, failures, and what they
should improve. If the teacher does this kind of job sensitively, it means he/she use
encouraging evaluation, then the speaking activities can contribute to acquisition and
fixation of speaking skill.
3.
then the activity is good. More factors take a share in childrens satisfaction from
speaking; it is their own participating, the ability of teacher to set up the activity properly
and give them sympathetic and useful comments. (Harmer, 88)
Brumfit says that when the teacher tells a story, or present any extended speech to
the class, it is fluency activity. Also every time students are expected to read a long text
for its content, they are engaged in fluency.(Brumfit, 83)
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spend some time with the group C that needs a special attention, while the two other
groups work on the task without being supervised. (Harmer, 21)
Scott and Ytreberg (43-45)give advise to teacher that he/she should establish some
kind of a habit for pairwork, so that what the teacher says Work in pairs, all the
students know what to do. Pupils who are sitting next to each other or near should work
together. The teacher should first explain the task to the whole class before he/she put
them into pairs.
Some problems may occur when children are divided into the groups. They may
not like some of the pupils in the group/pair, if there are some students who are on the
higher level than the others, he/she may speak more or mostly and the rest is silent. Scott
and Ytreberg claim that the teacher can group the children according to their abilities; it
means that the more efficient students will work separately from the less efficient, and
teacher can apply to the weaker pupils.
The other problem may occur with students who normally disrupt in the lessons.
They may be encouraged even more because they do not feel the presence of the teacher.
Another insufficiency of groupwork is that students may use their first language instead
of speaking English when the teacher can not hear them. (Harmer, 21)
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Brumfit considers the pair and group work to be medium which can increase the
quantity and intensity of practice during oral work. It works on the basis of naturalistic
behaviour.
The use of groups may help to create an appropriate
atmosphere for independent work, but it cannot substitute for the
necessary training of students to operate entirely on their own in
reading or writing. Consequently, the prime value of group work
lies in its ability to stimulate natural language activity in discussion
and conversation. (Brumfit, 87)
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It may depend a lot on teachers choice of topic, activity and linguistic content that
they may be able to turn a class around. They can also inspire the students by their own
behaviour, consciousness, their attitude to class participation, their humour and
seriousness as well. The teacher can also use body language, gestures, mimics and
physical activities. All these conditions take part on the whole class atmosphere.
Children usually like and enjoy the activities the teacher has prepared for them
because it is motivating for them. These factors mean that it is easy to make the English
class an enjoyable, stimulating experience for them. (Phillips, 7)
Sarrah Phillips points out some instructions to bear in mind:
The activities should be simple enough for the children to understand
The task should be within their abilities. It must be possible for them to do it
successfully but at the same time sufficiently stimulating for them to feel satisfied with
their work
The teacher should change activities to keep childrens attention
The activities should be largely orally based
Written activities should be used sparingly with younger children
really listening to the English that is being used (not just in the sense of paying attention)
-
a willingness to experiment many good learners are prepared to take risks, to try
they do not understand something. Good learners use this opportunity to ask when they
are not sure if they understand or when they want to clarify some information
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a willingness to think about how to learn good learners invent their own study
skills when they come to a lesson, they think about the best way to write vocabulary in
their wordbooks; the best method of drafting and re-drafting a piece of writing
-
helps them. They are glad to have some feedback and act upon what they were told.
Giving feedback means praising students for the thing they do well, and offering them
the ability to do things better if they were less successful.
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pace, variety of organisation, variety of voice. Although the older pupils can concentrate
for longer period, they still need lots of variety.
On the other hand children benefit from being familiar with the situation. It is
useful to have some systems, routines and organised lesson, using familiar situations and
activities e.g. repeating stories, rhymes. (Scott, Ytreberg, 6)
The teacher should use as many sources of language material as possible and not
concentrate on the textbook only because there are usually many useful sources available
for teaching language:
The most important is the teacher as a person and the way, he/she uses English, stories
he/she tells, how he/she acts and reacts
Books with stories, copyright material, tapes, CDs, video, computer
Posters, masks, puppets, small exhibitions of childrens work in the classroom
Real things teacher can use e.g. real set when practising the words like knife, fork,
spoon, or real ruler, pen, pencil, a pair of compasses, fruit, vegetable etc. (Slattery, Willis,
127)
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UNIT 1
Preparation
Prepare pictures of Little Red Riding Hood, her grandmother and the red cape and hood.
Before the beginning of the lesson write the new words from UNIT 1 on the board, you
can add the pronunciation (see the wordlist). Prepare handouts with the text, one handout
for a pair (students should get handouts with the particular part of a text within each
unit).
Activity 1: presentation
Write Little Red Riding Hood on the board and tell your pupils that you are going to
start reading this fairy-tale. Ask questions about it. Then read them the first part of the
story.
e.g. Do you know this fairy-tale? (Yes, I do. No, I dont)
What is the Czech name for Little Red Riding Hood? (erven Karkulka)
What characters are there in the story? (Little Red Riding Hood, grandmother,
mother, father, the wolf)
Activity 2: vocabulary
Tell your pupils to write down the new words. Before you give them the meaning of
every word, ask them. Maybe they will know some of the words. If they do, tell the pupil
who knows the Czech meaning to write it on the board. If nobody knows the meaning,
say it and write it on the board. Ask: What does once mean? What does time
mean? When they know these words, then ask: All right, so what does once upon a
time mean? and so on. Make sure all pupils had enough time to write all the words.
Then go through the new words again saying every word loudly. Let the pupils repeat it.
It is good to establish a kind of ritual here, to repeat the words in a rhythm, for example
like this: first the teacher says the word loudly for the whole class, the class repeats the
word. Then the teacher points at one pupil who repeats it alone, then he/she points at
another pupil who will again repeat it alone. If they pronounce it correctly, the teacher let
the whole class say it together once again. This way the teacher can make sure
everybody is able to pronounce the word correctly and that everybody heard it clearly
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several times. This activity can be done the same way with every page of the fairy-tale
taught. Verbs marked with * are irregular verbs and their irregular forms are written
our in appendix.
Little Red Riding Hood
deep
scatty
edge
sewing machine
woodcutter
cape
to hack down
hood
sort
to wear*
axe
to puff along
to enjoy
behind
chance
hole
to have* a smoke
root
to be closed
in the traffic
Activity 3: listening
The pupils should have the text (at least one for a pair). Start reading the story, try to
not to be monotonous and give some kind of action into your performance. You can
read it once, or twice, it depends on your students needs.
Activity 4: translation
Now give them about eight minutes to go through it and try to translate it. They can
work in pairs. After they have managed to go through it, they should read every
sentence and try to translate it correctly with help of the teacher, if necessary.
Revision
Discuss the part you have finished with the pupils, ask questions about the text, ask
what will happen next in the fairy-tale, try to make them talk, use their own vocabulary
and imagination to retell the story.
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UNIT 2
Activity 1: vocabulary
Present the new vocabulary and structures useful for this part of the text.
Suggested vocabulary:
to pack
huge
homemade
asleep
tart
to pluck
pickle
a piece of grass
stout
to tickle
to set* off
beady
to rush
to hurry straight
warm
to wave
oily
daydreams
sensible
to skip
log
whistling
daisy chain
silly
to sneak away
suddenly
pudding
Activity 2: listening
Read this part of the fairy-tale, the pupils listen quietly. Then read it again sentence by
sentence, the whole class will repeat and one of the pupils can be called out to translate
the sentence they have just heard.
Activity 3: teaching grammar
Past simple should be explained and taught in this lesson. Before working with the text,
the teacher should explain past simple and show how verbs change, and practise
pronunciation of the past forms of verbs. Prepare cards with some regular verbs and
cards with the ED suffixes. Show the pupils what happens with the verb when we are
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using past simple tense by showing them the card with verb in infinitive form, then join
the ED card. The last two verbs are in this part of the text of the fairy-tale.
Cards:
WORK
ED
PLAY
ED
CALL
ED
ARRIVE
ED
Tell the pupils this is how past tense works in English with all regular verbs. Then write
a few more regular verbs on the board and ask pupils to come and write their past
simple form. Stress the fact, that the ED suffix is always added to an infinitive.
Prepare a few simple sentences in present and ask the pupils to transfer them into the
past tense. Explain that verbs in the past are the same for all persons. As an example
you can use these sentences:
She plays the piano.
He works in a factory.
I like ice-cream.
(I liked ice-cream.)
When the pupils say the sentence in the past, practise pronunciation with the whole
class. Explain the pupils not all verbs in English are regular. Write some irregular verbs
that appear in the fairy-tale on the board and tell them to learn them for the next lesson.
Practise their pronunciation.
Activity 4: work with the text
Tell the learners to underline all verbs in the text (APPENDIX 1) that are in the past
tense. After they have done so ask them to read these verbs aloud and write them on the
board, adding the present form.
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Homework:
Tell the students to rewrite the sentences in the past tense into present.
Revision:
Let the pupils think about what they have learnt in this lesson. Ask someone to explain
in his/her own words the past simple and to give an example. Thus you can check
whether they understand it properly. If not, you should come back to those particular
points.
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UNIT 3
Activity 1: vocabulary
Write new words on the board before the lesson starts and teach them to your learners
as described in UNIT 1.
Suggested vocabulary:
to ring*
hiccup
doorbell
gently
to settle down
to mutter
put* on
to squeeze
to spring*
letterbox
to feel* silly
to pounce
to swallow
to switch off
gulp
Activity 2: listening and gap-filling
Prepare handouts (APPENDIX 2) for every student where there are some missing verbs
both in present and past forms. Read the text ones and give the handouts to the students
and let them fill in the gaps. It may be difficult for them to complete the sentences, so
you should let them read the text on the handouts and then read it loudly again. You
may read it third times so that they can check and correct their answers and then go
through the text with them. You can practise the verb tenses. In order to do that, let
some pupil write the base form of the verb on the board and add the past tense and past
participle. E.g. ring rang rung.
Activity 3: grammar (past perfect)
Explain the students the function of in a sentence. Tell them that if there are two past
tenses in a sentences and one action precedes the other, past perfect must be used in the
action that happened first. Or when we want to show that something was completely
finished, we may use past perfect. Write the following sentences that appear in the text
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on a board and let the pupils focus on them. Explain their meaning. You can give more
examples of past perfect.
The wolf rang Grandmas doorbell.
Grandma had just settled down to watch the news.
Other examples:
When he had painted the kitchen and bathroom, he decided to have a rest.
After I had finished the report, I realised that it was too late to post it.
Activity 4: speaking
Use the picture (APPENDIX 3) to let pupils speak, ask questions about the picture.
Using a picture is an advantage and you can use it for teaching your pupils new words
from the picture, making them talk, ask and answer questions, all that in an enjoyable
and creative way.
Suggested questions:
What do you see in the picture? (you can use these words: wolf, bed, pillow, featherbed, candle, artificial teeth, bottles, portrait)
What is the character in the picture doing? (he is laying in the Grandmas bed,
pretending to be a grandma)
What is he wearing? (he is wearing a pink night-gown and pink night-cap)
What has he done before? (he ate/swallowed Grandma and put on her clothes)
Who is he waiting for? (he is waiting for Little Red Riding Hood in Grandmas bed)
A what does he want to do? (he wants to eat her)
This activity offers a lot of possibilities how to develop conversation among pupils
themselves or among pupils and teacher. You can ask pupils about their grandmothers,
ask where does she live, how old is she, if she still works, what are her hobbies, how
often do they visit her, what is her house like and so on. Thus you can make students
talk and it is also a good opportunity to show an interest in their own lives. The pupils
can be expected to be much more active and inspired when talking about their own
lives and their families, because it is not something theoretical or distant from reality.
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UNIT 4
Revision:
Start the lesson with asking about the previous lesson in order to check if they catch
some information and to remind them about the last lessons topic.
Suggested questions:
Who were we talking about in the last lesson?
Can somebody remember some information about someone elses grandma?
Ask questions about the picture.
Ask someone to retell the whole story (or ask one pupil to start with and the other one
to continue etc.) to the point where you had finished the last lesson. Check the
vocabulary from the last lesson and present new words for this lesson.
Activity 1: vocabulary and listening
Present the vocabulary as in previous lessons and read the text once with the emphasis
on performance (you should change the tone of your voice to indicate different
characters speaking).
Suggested vocabulary:
dusk
to hug
to knock
to rumble
to creep
faint
to hide*
to flash
to notice
to stammer
to mumble
swirl
closely
to snatch
to eyelash
to feel* full
hairy
to be* pleased
paw
Activity 2: a puzzle (pair-work)
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Divide the class into pairs. Each pair will be given stripes with sentences (APPENDIX
4). The students task is to put the sentences into the right order so that it makes sense.
The teacher should walk around the classroom and check how successful they are, if
necessary give them a small hint. When the students are ready, ask a few pairs to read
what they have created, the class can discuss which version seems to be more probable
and why. Then read the text so that they can check their work. Give them a few minutes
to correct their work and finally read the correct version sentence after sentence aloud.
Activity 3: a role-play
Give pupils 5 minutes for reading the text again in pairs. One pupil is supposed to be
Little Red Riding Hood and the other one Wolf. They should retell the story in
present tense (simple and continuous) and use their own words. Let them practice the
dialog in pairs. You should control how they are doing and help them, if necessary.
When they are ready to retell the story, ask one or more pairs to perform the dialog
loudly. You should help them again; their own ideas and creativity should be accepted
and appreciated. It is good to give them feedback, tell them why you like their dialog,
what you appreciate the most, and also about their possible mistakes.
Homework:
Students in pairs or small groups should prepare a scene (maximal length 5 min) for the
next lesson. If you see the students would not have enough time to get ready, give them
few days to rehearse the scene. They can chose whichever scene they want, use their
fantasy and also some masks, costumes, objects, audiotapes, sceneries to make it funny
as much as possible. They will be evaluated for their language skills, originality and
effort).
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UNIT 5
Revision:
At the beginning of the lesson each group will perform their scene and the teacher will
give them a feedback and possibly an evaluation. It may take about 20 minutes, that is
why the activities of this unit are not so time consuming.
Activity 1: vocabulary
Present the new vocabulary, teach new words and phrases.
Suggested vocabulary:
meanwhile
huge
absence
tummy
to search
to leap*
to light*
blow
torch
to grab
nasty
to spy
to tumble out
to sneer*
angry
to see*
sticky
Activity 2: listening
Read the text to the pupils. Then ask them to read and translate the text, each student
one sentence. Make sure they understand everything without any problems.
Activity 3: word classes
Prepare handouts (APPENDIX 5) and tell the students to right down all the words from
the text to the right columns. Start with the example: meanwhile adverbial. If you don
t want them to work with all the words from the text, you can highlight just the useful
words. Give them time to do the task, then check it together, and add the Czech
equivalent for each word.
Activity 4: speaking
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Ask some pupils to retell that part of the story in their own words. This can also be a
written homework (you can order the length they should be aware of). When writing
the story at home, they should make it more creative and make out the possible followups. You can also tell them to write it from somebodys point of view e.g. from
woodcutters point of view.
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UNIT 6
Activity 1: vocabulary
Present and practise new vocabulary.
Suggested vocabulary:
to wake up*
to give up*
to run*
to grow*
to join in
instead
supper
although
to move
either
district
Activity 2: listening, pronunciation
Read the text once or twice; let the pupils translate the text. Then practise the
pronunciation of words below. Say it first, the pupils will repeat it several times, let
them focus on the emphasised sounds.
woodcutter [w]
wolf [u]
vegetable [v]
move [u:]
Grandma []
mother [a]
everything []
that []
animals [s]
friends [z]
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During this time you can go round the class and check how they are doing. The pupils
can exaggerate, use their fantasy and make fun of the story. Finally, some pairs should
perform it, or it can be also their homework for the next lesson. It can be evaluated.
Tip: pupils may be asked to record their dialogues at home on a tape, bring it to school
and there play. That would sound as a real radio interview.
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be
creep
feel
give
grow
have
hide
leap
light
put
ring
run
see
spring
wake
wear
was, were
crept
felt
gave
grew
had
hid
leapt, leaped
lit
put
rang
ran
saw
sprang
woke
wore
been
crept
felt
given
grown
had
hidden
leapt, leaped
lit
put
rung
run
seen
sprung
woken
worn
IV. CONCLUSION
This thesis was written to show a variety of possibilities of using English fairytale for purposes of making lessons of English in Czech school more interesting for its
students. It should also give pupils more space to use their fantasy and imagination
within the learning in the class. The teachers book suggests various ideas how to use
46
the text of the Little Red Riding Hood for explaining grammar, developing the pupils
speaking skills and pronunciation as well as widening their active vocabulary. The
reason for using the fairy-tale in lessons of English at Czech schools may be an effort to
reach diversity in a class and to motivate the learners. Using fairy-tale should lead in a
communicative attitude that reminds them about their childhood when they were used
to listen to the fairy-tales and speak about them subsequently.
There are many alternatives of using an English text for teaching purposes and
this work cant include all of them. The activities and instructions are general and can
be applied on whichever fairy-tale or story that corresponds with students abilities. The
conditions of teaching are different in every class. If the teacher will use this teachers
book in his/her class, he should take the reality and overall atmosphere of the class into
consideration and adapt the activities to serve his/her purposes.
The main focus is on improving speaking skills rather than extensive explaining
grammar because this study is meant to be an addition to a common work with a text
book. There is a presumption that students are aware of some grammar rules and it was
practised when working with the textbook, workbook and other materials.
The work has been divided into six units after evaluating the length of the fairytale. It is possible for the teacher who will use this work to divide every unit into
several lessons and make it appropriate to the level of the knowledge of his/her
students, their age, interest and discipline. The important parts of this work are also
English-Czech wordlist, list of irregular verbs and appendices.
For teaching a foreign language successfully, the teachers should not forget it is
not enough to have a good knowledge of the subject taught but also the attitude is very
important. A good teacher is that one who is kind, enthusiastic, understanding and fair.
Teaching children is not only passing them the knowledge, it should also mean teaching
them how to be good people. And that is possible only by being good to them.
V. RESUM
Clem tto bakalsk prce bylo vytvoen didaktick pruky k textu
pohdky ,,erven Karkulka. Autorka v n prezentuje monosti vyuit anglickho
textu pohdky pro doplnn vuky anglickho jazyka na eskch kolch. Metody zde
47
The aim of this bachelor thesis was creating a didactic textbook referring to the
text of the fairy-tale. The author presents in it the possibilities of using the English text
of a fairy-tale for amendment the English language teaching at Czech schools. If
modified the methods mentioned, they can be used for working with various age
groups, mainly with students of advanced or intermediate level and age from 9 to 11.
Based on one of the most popular fairy-tales The Little Red Riding Hood a
didactic book was developed to be used by teachers. Activities that appear there should
contribute to enriching teaching/learning of English with communicative and creative
approach. The purpose is to make the pupils interested in and motivate, so that they
perceive the learning of foreign language as an entertainment.
This work is meant to be used as an additional material and it should be used
together with other facilities as textbook, workbook and other additional texts. This
textbook should not be used as the only source for teaching.
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anglicko-esk slovnk: koln. Havlkv Brod, Fragment, 1999.
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Internet pages:
CliffsNotes.com. Cognitive Development: Age 711. [on line]. Science. [quoted: 9
Aug2007].<http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/CliffsReviewTopic/topicArticleI
d-26831,articleId-26782.html>.
VII. APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1
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APPENDIX 2
The wolf __________ Grandmas doorbell. Grandma had just settled down
to __________ the news.
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APPENDIX 3
Picture of the Wolf
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APPENDIX 4
(split the sentences)
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD KNOCKED AT GRANDMAS DOOR.
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APPENDIX 5
Task: put all the words from the text into the right columns:
Meanwhile, the woodcutter, worried by his daughters long absence, was
searching the woods for her.
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He lit his way with the torch he got for Christmas, and he carried his big
axe in case he met anything nasty.
Peeping through Grandmas open door, the woodcutter spied the wolf,
snoring gently on the floor. He also saw the wolfs huge tummy. Realising
what had happened, the woodcutter leapt forward, bringing his axe down
with a stunning blow on the wolfs head.
Nouns
Adjectives
Pronouns
Numerals
Verbs
Adverbs
meanwhile
Prepositions
Conjunctions
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