Diane Yuzhu Qian Principles & Practices of Language Teaching Prof.

Jourdenais & Szasz Lesson Plan Unit April 25, 2013

Context: It is a beginning level B.U.I.L.D. Chinese class at MIIS. The learners are 6-8 graduate students (most of them are in their 20th) enrolled in different programs with various L1. The class meets once a week. There are 10 classes in total, and these two lessons are the third and the fourth one. Terminal objectives: by the end of the semester, the students can Understand and conduct simple conversations in daily life. Read and write basic and short texts. Build a cultural awareness concerning the differences and similarities between Chinese and other cultures. Kumaravadivelu macrostrategies: Macrostrategy 1: Integrating language skills Macrostrategy 2: Raising cultural consciousness Lesson 1 Theme: Chinese Indie music songs and lyrics Materials: Music video of Xuan Zhangs Baby, handout with the lyrics Enabling objectives: by the end of the class, the students can Identify the possessive pronouns in a sentence, correctly pronounce them and tell the meanings. Explain the meaning of the lyrics and a few cultural implications behind.

Steps: Warming-up questions: what do you know about the indie music in your culture? Do you know any Chinese pop songs? What do you know about the indie music in China? Activity 1: pass the handouts. Play the music video. Let the students only listen to the song without watching the images, and ask them to circle the words they recognize on the handout while listening and compare with others about what they got. And play the video again. This time the students will watch it, and they can also try to read the subtitles of the lyrics. Grammar explaining about possessive pronouns: first ask the students whether they recognize any possessive pronouns from activity 1. And then tell them where the possessive pronouns appear in the lyrics (the one appearing in the lyrics is which means my). Then explain its meaning, function and usage. Activity 2: write on the board other possessive pronouns which do not appear in the lyrics. First ask the students to find the similarities between those words and the one in the lyrics (for example, the second character in the wordwhich means your is the same with the word my), and guess the meanings of those words. Then tell them the answer, and let them practice saying those words. Culture explaining: go over the translation of the lyrics. And introduce the singer and the topic of the song. Lesson 2 Theme: Chinese Indie music live houses

Materials: Music video from lesson 1, video of Xuan Zhangs Baby in a live house in Beijing Enabling objectives: by the end of the class, the students can Understand the sentence structure This/that is + possessive pronouns + nouns and make their own sentences using it. Give their own opinions on Chinese indie music and compare it with indie music from other cultures. Steps: Warming-up questions: what do you remember from last class? Guide the students to talk about the literal as well as the cultural meaning of the lyrics. Play the music video from lesson 1. Grammar explaining: review the possessive pronouns learned in lesson 1. And then introduce the sentence structure This/that is + possessive pronouns + nouns. Activity 1: first let the students practice saying the sentence in the whole class. And write on the board some nouns (such as desks, chairs, etc., something in the classroom). And then in pairs, let them tell each other using different possessive pronouns This/that is by pointing at the right object. Culture explaining: play the live house video, and introduce the live house culture in Beijing. Discussion questions: what do you think of Chinese indie music? What do you think are the differences and similarities between the Chinese indie music and around the world?

 Activity 2: play the music video from lesson 1 again. Lead the students to sing along with it.

Reference Du, W. (Producer). (2008, April 24). Zhang Xuan Baby. from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69sgYJvedoE Jiao, A. (Producer). (2006, June 9). Sony Music Entertainment(Taiwan)Ltd. Baby. from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt7ZO5YAMuM Li, R. (2009, August 16). Zhang Xuan Baby lyrics [Msg 2]. Message posted to http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/112386685.html