Unit 15 Difficult situations

Transcription

1 Unit 15 Difficult situations About this unit Two difficult situations are described in this unit, one of a girl with a hearing and speech impediment being misunderstood at a fast-food outlet; the other of a girl who gets caught up in a web of lies when she wants to get a signed free copy of her favourite pop star s CD, instead of going to netball practice. Both situations are eventually resolved: Sewuese, the girl with the speech and hearing impediment, gets to point at her food and drinks choice so that the woman serving behind the counter can understand her; she has also started taking speech lessons so that people will understand her better. Bella, the girl who lied in order to get out of netball practice, confesses and apologises to her father, her friend Fiki and the netball coach. The pupils get to talk about disabilities and how to help people with different disabilities. They revise the present perfect and learn how to respond when being congratulated. Finally, they write a letter of response to someone who has congratulated them on their achievements. Lesson 1 Listening and speaking: talk about people with disabilities and how they fit in to society; compose an oral using simple adjectives and adverbs. Grammar: use the present perfect tense in sentences. PB; Chalkboard There are two parts to the lesson. You will spend most of the time talking about disabilities that some people have. Get the pupils to tell you about some of the different disabilities there are: walking disabilities, hearing and speech impairments, blindness etc. Refer the pupils to the photograph on page 96 of the PB, and any others that you have brought to class. Point out that some disabilities, like the one shown in the photograph, are more visible than others. Ask the class what this means: for instance, someone who has a walking disability will normally be in a wheelchair or on crutches, which means that we can clearly see their impediment. Ask how we recognise people with speech, sight, and visual impairments. People with a sight impairment often wear dark glasses. They might have a white stick (called a sight impaired walking cane ) and they might have special armbands and a guide dog. People with a speech or hearing impairment are hard to spot, because if they don t have a hearing aid you will not see that there is anything different about them at all. The final part of the lesson is devoted to grammar. The pupils will write sentences using the present perfect tense. If there is insufficient time, let them complete this for homework. However, before they do, revise the use and formation of this tense covered earlier in the course. Listening and speaking (PB p. 96) Divide the class into groups of four or five and ask them to work through Activities 1 3 on page 96 of the PB. They are asked to tell the other members of their group about a disability they personally know about, either if they themselves have an impairment or if they know someone with a walking, visual or hearing/speech impairment. Most pupils in the class will have seen someone on crutches or in a wheelchair, or with a walking cane, so they will be able to contribute to the group discussion. They then discuss the answers. For Activity 3, pupils are to write a few sentences describing what it must be like to have a disability. Encourage them to use the suggested adjectives and adverbs on page 96 and 97 of the PB. Then invite them to read out their sentences to the class. To end this section, ask the pupils what all these impairments have in common: the impairments often set the disabled person apart from the crowd. They can make the person less able to be independent in the different activities of daily living, and they often make the person feel left out. Ask why this is so. Very often, 64

2 public facilities and buildings are made for ablebodied people people without impairment. People with impairments must constantly feel slower and less able than everybody else. Assessment You can use the criteria on Rating scale 1: Listening and speaking. You will find it on the website. Grammar (PB p. 99) Revise what they know about verbs in the present perfect tense and then get them to complete the activity on page 99. (PB p. 99) 1. a) Volunteers have phoned everyone they know. b) They have helped me to feel much better. c) People have given them blankets and medicine. d) The person behind the counter has helped her. e) Doctors have operated on her ears. f) My daughter has shown her what she wanted. g) I have started lessons to help me speak better. The pupils work in groups to discuss steps that can be taken in their school and community to make the lives of disabled people easier. Give each pupil a chance to say the sentences they have created using adverbs and adjectives. Lesson 2 Reading: read a picture story and answer questions about the story. Resource PB Read through the introduction to the picture story on page 97 with the class. Reading (PB pp. 97&98) Ask the pupils to read Sewuese s story on pages 97 and 98 of the PB by themselves. Afterwards, ask the pupils what they think of the story. Ask them why Sewuese, in frame 3, is glaring at the woman behind the counter, and why the woman is embarrassed. Working in their former groups of four or five, ask the pupils to discuss the answers to the questions that follow the story. When they have finished, go through the answers to the questions with the class. (PB p.98) 1. There are three people in the story: Sewuese, her mother and the woman behind the counter serving them. 2. The story takes place at a fast-food outlet. 3. The problem is that the woman can t understand Sewuese. 4. Nobody behaves badly. Sewuese is angry that the woman seems to be ignoring her (she glares at the woman). The woman is upset and embarrassed. Both their reactions are understandable. Sewuese s mother is concerned. She is wondering how to resolve this problem without hurting anybody s feelings. 5. Sewuese s mother tries to sort out the problem. She gets her daughter to show the woman what she wants. By doing this, she still lets her daughter do the communicating, and she makes Sewuese s meaning clear to the woman. 6. Yes, the problem is sorted out. The woman and Sewuese understand each other. The woman gives Sewuese what she wants and smiles. Sewuese thanks her and smiles back. Work in pairs to do some research on an organisation in your community that works with the disabled. Walk round the classroom while the pupils work, offering help and support where required. 65

3 Lesson 3 Listening and speaking: listen to the second part of the story about Sewuese. PB; WB There are three parts to this lesson. Pupils will start off the lesson by reading through the statements about Sewuese s story in Activity 7 on page 99 of the PB. Tell them you will be reading them a text. While they listen, the pupils are to choose the correct option for each sentence. Then, still on the theme of Sewuese, the pupils complete the second part of the lesson by doing Activities 1, 2 and 3 on pages 33 and 34 of the WB. In the activities, they have to match the information in two columns and do a word search for past participles. Finally, they revise the use of the present perfect tense and complete activities in the PB. Listening and speaking (PB p. 98) Read the following listening text for this unit to the class. When I was born I could hear. When I was 4 years old I got mumps. I was very sick and then I could not hear. So I had to stay in bed. I stayed there for a long time, maybe a month. Sometimes my mother took me to the hospital. They carried out some tests on me and told me my left ear was completely blocked, but that my right ear could pick up some sounds. At first I tried a hearing aid, but it did not work for me. I felt very strange and confused. I didn t like to use it. Now, I am 10 years old, and I have a new hearing aid. It is small and it works quite well. I can hear what people say to me. (PB p. 99) 7. a) When Sewuese was born she could hear. b) She lost her hearing when she was 4 years old. c) She was ill with mumps. d) She stayed in bed for about one month. e) She went to hospital for tests. f) Her left ear was blocked. g) Her right ear could hear a little. h) At first she did not like using a hearing aid. i) When she was 10 years old, she got a new hearing aid. j) Now she can hear what people say to her. (WB p.33) 1. Sewuese has problems with her hearing. f) Sewuese is not able to speak clearly. 2. Sewuese goes shopping with her mother. c) They are hungry and go to a take out. 3. Sewuese orders what she wants. d) The woman behind the counter cannot understand what she says. 4. The woman asks Sewuese s mother what Sewuese wants. a) Sewuese gets angry. 5. Sewuese s mother tells her to ask Sewuese again. e) The woman understands what Sewuese wants. 6. The woman gives Sewuese an extra big helping. b) Sewuese is not cross anymore, and everyone is friends again. 2. Eat/eaten; Go/gone; fly/flown; give/given; read/read 3. a) I don t want to take that book out of the library because I have had it already. b) That bird has flown here all the way from Europe. c) I m not hungry thank you. I have eaten already. d) He borrowed my book, but he has given it back to me. e) Have you been to the cinema recently? Lesson 4 Reading: read a picture story and answer questions. PB; Reader 66

4 Ask the pupils to work on their own. They are to read through the picture story titled A true friend, on page 48 of the Reader. Reading (Reader p.48) When they have finished, ask the pupils how this story fits in with the rest of the unit: firstly, like Sewuese s, it is a picture story. It is told in the first person, i.e. from the perspective of the main character, Bella. Secondly, it tells about a difficult situation. Unlike Sewuese, Bella has no impairments, so the difficult situation she finds herself in is entirely of her own making. But as in Sewuese s story, the problem is solved, and the characters feel the better for it. Ask them to look at page 51 and complete the activity. They should answer the questions on their own. (Reader p.51) 1. There are 14 frames (frame 2 is a split frame). 2. Frame 9: I m in trouble. 3. They both love music and Fast Boy Forward. 4. Bella is sporty; Fiki prefers art. 5. She doesn t give her friend away when the father says he didn t know she played netball. She confronts Bella about her lying. After Bella has apologised, she forgives her and even says Bella was brave to tell the truth. 6. She lied about the netball practice not being important. And she lied when she said her parents knew about her wanting to go to the CD shop. 7. She confesses and she apologises. 8. Thanks for the lift, Mr Steel, said Fiki. Bella said, Dad, please wait a bit. Fiki, I m sorry, she apologised. Fiki faced her, clearly upset. You lied to me. And you almost made me lie to your dad, she accused her friend. Bella went back to her father. Dad, I m sorry. I need to apologise to you and Fiki, she said. Afterwards, Fiki said to her friend, You were brave enough to tell the truth. You re a true friend, Fiki, replied Bella. 9. Pupils own responses Some people argue that picture stories cannot be regarded as real literature in the same way that stories, short stories, poems, myths and folklore are and that they cannot be taken seriously. Pupils work in groups to discuss this point of view and to say whether they agree or disagree with it. One person from each group should report back to the class. Read the picture story and work through new words. Make sure pupils have time to read aloud as well as silently. Lesson 5 Writing: respond to a letter of congratulations. Chalkboard; PB Pupils round off the lesson by learning how to acknowledge being congratulated. They first work through a brief activity in the PB in which they have to match responses. They then write a letter of congratulations. Writing (PB p. 100) Ask the pupils to open their books on page 100 and to complete Activity 1. (PB p. 100) 1. Thank you for your kind It was very nice of you letter. to write to me. I couldn t have done it You were a great help without you. to me. I feel lucky to have such You guys are the best. good friends. It was a team effort. I didn t do it alone. Throughout this course, the pupils have written a number of letters, most of them being formal letters. Tell the pupils that the letter that they have to write for this written task falls somewhere between a formal letter and an informal letter. On the one hand, it is formal in the sense that they will be writing to their 67

5 grandmother and will therefore use polite language. (In other words, the language will be more formal than if they were writing to their best friend.) On the other hand, the letter is informal in the sense that they are writing to a family member, someone they know, not someone they don t know and who is distanced from them in terms of their status or rank in society. Ask the pupils to read through the instructions to Activity 2 on page 100 of the PB and to plan what they will say in their letters. As always, they should first write a rough draft before writing out a neat, final version to hand in to you for marking. Work in pairs and role-play different scenarios in which you take turns in giving and receiving congratulations. Where more work is required, try to give one-toone support. Assessment You can use the criteria on Checklist 2: Letters. You will find it on the website. 68