Lesson plan (English)

Title: One should eat to live, not live to eat.

Lesson plan elaborated by: Magdalena Trysińska

Topic:

One should eat to live, not live to eat... About Molière's comedy.

Target group

6th‑grade students of an eight‑year elementary school.

Core curriculum

I. Literary and cultural education.

1. Reading literary compositions Student:

11) indicates main and supporting characters in the literary work and describes their features;

12) specifies the theme and concept of the composition;

14) names the impressions aroused by a given text;

16) specifies the experiences of the literary characters and compares them with his own;

17) demonstrates his own understanding of the literary text and can justify it;

18) uses his own experiences and elements of cultural knowledge to interpret texts.

19) expresses his own opinion on characters and events;

20) indicates values in the literary work and defines values that are important to the character.

2. Reception of the cultural texts. Student:

2) finds directly and non‑directly (hidden) expressed messages in the text.

3) specifies the topic and the main theme of the text;

8) understands the specificity of cultural texts belonging to: literature, theatre, film, music, visual and audio‑visual arts.

II. Language skills.

2. Language differentiation. Student:

6) recognises neutral and evaluative vocabulary, understands their functions in the text;

8) distinguishes synonyms, antonyms, understands their function in the text and uses in his own statements;

III. Creating expressions

1. Elements of rhetoric. Student:

1) takes part in a discussion on a given topic, can separate its parts and structural signals strengthening the bond among the participants of the dialogue and explaining the meaning

2. Speaking and writing Student:

4) creates notes

5) talks about the read text

9) uses the language skills in created statements.

IV. Self‑education. Student:

1) perfects loud and silent reading;

2) perfects different forms of writing down the gained information.

The general aim of education

Students get to know the comedy of characters (“The Miser” by Molière) as one of the comedy types.

Key competences

communication in the mother tongue;
communication in foreign languages;
social and civic competences;
consciousness and cultural expression.

Operational objectives

Student:

plans menu;
reads the message of the comedy “The Miser” by Moliere;
interprets aphorism;
describes the play characters;
tells what is comism in a comedy.

Methods/techniques

problematic: guided conversation, discussion;
programmed: using computer, using e‑textbook;
practical: exercises on subject, work with text.

Forms of work

uniform individual activity;
uniform group activity;
pair and group activity.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Introduction

1. The teacher determines the purpose of the class. He/she gives students the criteria of success.

2. A short warm‑up – introductory talk. The teacher asks students:

What do you like to eat?
Do you like to prepare meals and if so, which ones?
What is important when eating meals? (place, company, etc.)

Realization

1. The teacher divides the class into groups and asks the students to design a menu that could be presented to the restaurant guests (ex. 1). Students write the propositions of breakfasts, starters, main courses, desserts and drinks. If needed, the teacher explains what the starters are and when are they served. Example: Starter - a dish served before the main course i.e.: dinner. Usually they are cold snacks. This exercise can be done by writing in the form from the abstract or the teacher can prepare sheets of paper resembling the restaurant menu.

2. The teacher displays on the board the sentence: “One should eat to live, not live to eat”. The Latin version can also be displayed: „Edimus, ut vivamus, non vivimus ut edamus”. It is worth to inform the students that these are the words of the Greek philosopher, Socrates. Students analyse this sentence and discuss its meaning. They give examples.

3. The teacher displays on the board the painting by Tadeusz Makowiecki “The Miser” (exercises 3 and 4). In the lexical exercise one can refer to students' knowledge regarding semantic relations: synonymousness and antonims.

4. In the second part of the lesson students will analyse and interpret an extract from “The Miser” by Moliere. Students read the text (they can do a role‑play). Then they perform ex. no 6, 7 and 8.

5. Harpoon's assessment – finding in the text examples confirming his avarice and reinterpreting the sentence (interactive board, exercises 9 and 10).

6. The teacher notes that Molier's text is a comedy. He asks students if they find the text funny – the students justify their opinion, they look for examples of comedy in the fragments of the text.

Summary

The teacher asks the students questions prompting them to evaluate their own work and the level of understanding of the material, e.g.

What was the most important thing for me in this lesson?
What was understandable and what was not?
What would I like to ask a question about this?
What would I still like to learn about this topic?
What helped me to learn and what bothered me?

Homework

Work in groups: basing on the text “The Miser hosts dinner” prepare the performance. For this purpose:

divide into groups of 5,
shorten the text, adapt it to your abilities, you can modernize dialogues,
give title to your play,
read carefully the stage direction and prepare elements of scenography (costumes, props, set),
assign roles: director, set designer, actors,
design the poster,
present your performance to the class.