SECOND TERM - EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE / HIGH ACHIEVERS

A great leader said “I have a dream”. 11th Grade Teachers also have got one. Teachers want to make of each one of their students an exceptional person; that is why in each class, they will receive more than some information about the structure of the language. They will get important teachings for their lives. How those teachings will be given? It is very simple, through examples of real people and the message of their labours in different fields, such as: science, technology, art, sports, politics, religion, literature and music. Teachers will make their students understand that to be a great achiever it is not necessary to be a celebrity, a millionaire or a world leader. Each human being can do and achieve great things; it is just a matter of choice.
Teachers want to offer a different English class, providing dynamic activities based on the usage of the four language skills. The traditional grammar lesson is not part of the strategies that Ts will use; the language structure will be induced through the contents. It means that the Ss will realise the importance of the structure at the moment of expressing their opinions. This teaching proposal will provide the COMMUNICATIVE and LINGUISTIC elements that will be used during this school year and with no doubt may be really important for their lives as professionals.
According to the topic of this unit, the linguistic functions that the students will study are: Compound adjectives, superlative adjectives and appositives. Teachers expect their students to incorporate these functions into their everyday English in a natural way.
Every time when teachers start writing the lesson planning for a whole academic term, thousands of ideas cross by their minds, but there is a huge gap, between what would be great to work on, and what is really possible because of time matters.
For this second academic term, teachers have got 9 weeks to develop their work plan, and it is important to take into account that there are several institutional activities and holidays that will subtract time. This condition makes of this term the shortest one.
That is why the activities to be developed are not so many, but their level will be really demanding. The idea is not to do activities because teachers need to give a grade to each one.
To get this goal, it’s necessary to choose the proper material for each activity, which must be connected to the following one. Taking this into account, Teachers have made a selection of the material that will be used such as: Mariah Carey’s song “Hero” (video), Team Hoyt story (video), The strongest Dad in the world (article for Sports Illustrated), Remember the Titans (film). The students will be in charge of getting some material related such as: cerebral palsy, triathlons, American football rules, racism in U.S. around 70’s, biography of the film director Boaz Yakin and the film star Denzel Washington. The idea is to involve the students even more by searching what is behind each story, song, documental, interview or film that is heard, read or seen in class.