‘Understanding the media’: listening strategies, ideologically committed art in a globalized and commercial world.

Lesson plan

School: Liceo Solymar Central
Teacher: Maria Pia Cejas
Group: 3CB2 Medicina
Date: Monday 17th, August 2010.
Time: 40’
Topic: ‘Understanding the media’: listening strategies, ideologically committed art in a globalized and commercial world.

Objectives: by the end of the lesson students will be able to understand two different strategies to approach any piece of listening. They will also know there are some people trying to fight against mass media excessive consumers.


Personal aims: to establish a good atmosphere, to foster Ss critical point of view about consumerism in order to deal with the topic in the following lessons. To let them know there are particular artists from whom they can learn. To amuse them with the interview to Talib Kweli who is considered an example for Brooklyn community.

Assumptions: Ss have already learnt what skimming and scanning mean so they will have no difficulty understanding those strategies can also be used when listening to anything new. Students have been introduced to some bad effects of mass media including parents’ paranoia, teenagers’ addiction to technology and consumerism.

Anticipated problems:
• Ss may not understand some of the words or expressions in the interview.


Possible solutions:
• T will explain them the exercise is about listening comprehension and they will not need to know the exact meaning of every single word but to try to deduce it from its context.

Materials:
o Task sheets
o Hand outs
o Markers, eraser, whiteboard
o Computer
o Interview video: Talib Kweli interview on BATCAVE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqqFwc3SddY
o Definitions from listening strategies from Bell, J. and Gower, R. First Certificate Expert, Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh, England, 2008.


Activity Objective Development

Warm up (0)
8’
To set Ss in the actual lesson, to remind them of what they have worked in. To introduce Talib. To introduce the rest of the activities.
T will remind Ss of mass media implications and some of its bad effects as parents’ paranoia and consumerism. T will mention there are some artists that fight against producing commercial music. T will hand out Ss a brief description of Talib and his work.



Listening: learning and practice of listening strategies.


20’
To help Ss practice and improve their listening skills and to amuse them with the interview and information presented.
T will arrange Ss into three groups, the activity will be explained. Ss will receive one hand out each with the explanations of the different listening strategies and the activities to practice them. The definitions will be read aloud and explained if necessary. The three groups will be asked the initial questions on the activity and T will ask them to answer the rest of the questions while listening to the interview which will be played twice.

Correction of the task and closure.
12’
To correct the task and check Ss have understood the two strategies taught.
T will ask to each group to answer the questions and if necessary some parts of the recording will be played again. To remind them of consumerism of cell-phones dealt with in the previous lesson and to ask them to think about the its concept.