By Isabelle Sackville-West, CASLS Fellow
This activity is designed to promote learner creation of knowledge by connecting verb tenses to contexts that should be familiar to learners in other areas of their life, change and time. Specifically, it examines traditions against their modern counterparts. The lesson is designed to push beyond grammar instruction to involve exploration of salient social topics, critical thinking, and student autonomy. As written, this activity is most suitable for Intermediate learners, but novice learners could engage by making word lists and using chunks, while advanced learners could engage in more in-depth discussions.
Learning Objectives: Students will be able to
- Describe a change over time
- Compare and contrast traditional and modern practices
Modes: Interpersonal, Presentational
Materials needed: Photos of traditional practices and their modern counterparts
Procedure:
1. Have students complete the I see, I think, I wonder thinking routine. Show them an image or video of a traditional cultural practice (e.g., matchmaking in ancient China). Then, give students one minute to write down what they see—objective observations without subjective conjectures. Next, give students a minute to write down what they think about the image—what do they expect is going on? What is their impression? Finally, give students a minute to write down what they wonder about the image.
2. Repeat Step 1 with an image of the traditional practice’s modern counterpart (e.g., Shanghai’s People’s Park marriage market).
3. Discuss student’s responses in Steps 1 and 2 as a class.
4. Next, ask students to use their observations and thoughts from Steps 1 and 2 to brainstorm how to discuss change over time. Help students generate a vocabulary list and targeted structures as a class.
5. Next, provide grammatical scaffolding so that the students will be able to talk about change over time using the correct verb tenses. The type of scaffolding will depend on target language, but will most likely involve a lesson in verb tenses (e.g. past vs. present) or aspect.
6. Next, open up a more robust discussion about the images used in Steps 1 and 2. Here are some example discussion questions:
a. What are some similarities between the traditional and modern practices?
b. In what ways are the two practices different?
c. What type of social shift does the change in practices represent?
d. What is the impact of the social shift?
7. To practice talking about change over time, have students pretend they are talking with grandparents or other elders about how things have changed over their lives. They should offer the small shifts in family practices they have experienced themselves growing up. For example, students might say that when they were little and playing outside, their moms would blow a whistle to indicate when it was time to come in while now, their moms text them to come home.
8. Lastly, students should think about a larger cultural practice that has shifted over time. This practice can be relevant either to their native culture or the target culture. Students will research and present on a traditional practice and its modern counterpart. For the presentation students should:
a. Determine the genre (formal speech, video, etc.) in which they are going to present
b. Briefly describe both the traditional practice and modern practice
c. Compare and contrast the two practices
d. Discuss why the practice has shifted and how that has affected the society
i. Has it benefited the society by creating more social equality?
ii. Has it resulted in a loss of valuable traditions?
Notes:
To facilitate learners’ choice of genre in Step 8, either limit their choices to the genres you have already discussed in class or offer to discuss genre-specific conventions with learners individually when they select their presentation format.
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