[edeldonlon]

I teach a class of japanese young adults who attend evening high school. They range in age from 17-20. There level of english is very basic and their attention span is very short. I am meant to teach a class next week about Halloween but all the things I find on the internet are very childish. Any suggestions in what we could do?

[susan53]

If you have access to a computer in the classroom, try showing them some You Tube videos on halloween carving. I recommend this one but there are lots - just type halloweeen carving into the search box.

[laserprinter]

Did you find something for the lesson? I am in your situation years later... high school Halloween lesson.

[mesmark]

Try these
Fearsome Facts
Frankestein Comic

[sophiie]

Hello,

I'm also planning a lesson with a spooky/supernatural theme at the moment and thought to show the students Michael Jackson's video 'Thriller'. I've not planned anything concrete yet but just thought to talk about what happens in the video, maybe make some kind of story-board type thing as a group, then have them listen to the song again with a fill-in-the-gaps lyrics sheet.

If anyone has any suggestions for how I could built on that, would be much appreciated

[sophiie]

Since my last post, I've decided that the Thriller video is too long to show in its entirety and the words are a bit too unclear for a fill-in-the-gaps exercise to work very well. This is what I've planned instead (so far):

1. I start by talking to the students about Michael Jackson and his music, ask them for their ideas / opinions, etc, favourite songs, all that sort of thing to introduce the topic. I tell them we're going to listen to Thriller in this session, ask them if they've seen the video before, talk about how this ties in with their current topic of suspense/the supernatural, and introduce some vocab like zombie/werewolf/the occult.

2. Before the class, I've printed off copies of the lyrics and cut them up into bits (2-, 3-, 4-line sections, or you could do more more depending on the level). I put the students into pairs and give them some of the cut-up lyrics. I play the song (just the normal shorter version, not the video) and each pair has to listen out for the lyrics they have in front of them - when they hear the words, they grab that lyric. The person in each pair with the most bits of paper at the end is the winner. (They could get some kind of prize, eg. Halloween-y sweets, if that's the theme.)

3. Then I'll give them all a sheet with the lyrics written in full. I'll pick out a couple of verses for them to read aloud, each person doing 2-3 lines, so we can work on pronunciation and vocab.

After that I thought to show them a few bits from the video - where he turns into a werewolf, when all the zombies appear, etc. The students can discuss what's happening, talk about the zombie dance and how movement plays a bit role in creating a scary scene - this can link with talking about some of the vocab within the song relating to movement, eg. lurking/creeping...

More ideas welcome. Monday is my first ever day of teaching so hints and tips would be fantastic! Anything you think will/won't work, etc.

Also, I'm giving conversation classes, which is why all of my ideas are based around listening and speaking. :]

[BekahG]

Sophie-- How did this conversation lesson work for you? In the same situation now..did the students enjoy it and get involved? Thanks!

[sophiie]

Hey BekahG,

I did this lesson quite some time ago now, so my memory of it is a little hazy, but on the whole it went well! The song is quite difficult in terms of being able to pick out words and hear exactly what Michael's saying, but it helped that the students were already familiar with it.

It really depends on the class you do this with; I had quite a shy group so it took them a little while to get into it, but ultimately I think any young/teen students like a bit of competition, so they enjoyed the 'snatching' game!