Research Based Teaching

The National Literacy Trust in England shows that ”comedy in the classroom is a powerful way to get pupils reading and writing, especially boys who are traditionally harder to engage.” After doing theatre with my grade eight group in the fall of 2018, I realized that hilarity was my ticket to bringing the group together and engaging them! They had never wanted to do presentations and were shy to speak English, but, after a few lessons with theatre warm-up, they were up infront of everyone, clowning around.

Listening & Speaking:

Focus this term is on oral communication mostly because we are getting close to the National Oral Examination which will take place in October, 2018. Focusing on speaking and listening will help the students feel prepared come grade nine.

Students will:

listen to each other’s jokes and comedy routines
they will respond orally with positive and negative feedback
present their own jokes and comedy routines
work on delivery and the importance of tone, volume, tempo, diction, practice, expressiveness and body language

Themes

Lemshaga Akademi has a few goals for their students which correspond to those of the National Curriculum. These two goals are: norm criticism and environmentalism. During this unit we will explore how we can use comedy to raise awareness for these issues and bring to light the problems in our world today.

Lesson Routine:

Having a clear routine for lessons helps the students feel secure because they can predict what they will be working on and what is expected of them.

10 – 15 min. working with vocabulary that is relevant to our unit (Quizlet)
15-20 min. writing and researching for our comedy routines
15-20 min. practicing our routines orally, giving feedback based on a feedback checklist

Assessments

Formative:

comedy analysis checklist (listening to a teacher approved comedy routine and analyzing how the comedian writes their material
peer assessments using the feedback checklist
oral telling of jokes and comedy routines

Summative:

final copy of a written comedy routine
final presentation of a comedy routine

Links to the Swedish Curriculum (LGR11):

Core Content Years 7-9

Content of communication

Current and subject areas familiar to the pupils.
Interests, daily situations, activities, sequences of events, relations and ethical questions.
Views, experiences, feelings and future plans.
Living conditions, traditions, social relations and cultural phenomena in various contexts and areas where English is used.Listening and reading – reception

Spoken English and texts from various media.
Spoken English with some regional and social variants.
Oral and written instructions and descriptions.
Different types of conversations, dialogues, interviews and oral communications.
Oral information, discussions
Strategies to understand details and context in spoken language and texts, such as adapting listening and reading to the type of communication, contents and purpose.
Language phenomena such as pronunciation, intonation, grammatical structures, sentence structure, words with different registers, as well as xed language expressions pupils will encounter in the language.
Oral and written narratives, descriptions and instructions.
Conversations, discussions and argumentation.
Language strategies to understand and be understood when language skills are lacking, such as reformulations, questions and explanations.
Language strategies to contribute to and actively participate in conversations by taking the initiative in interaction, giving con rmation, putting follow- up questions, taking the initiative to raise new issues and also concluding conversations.
Language phenomena to clarify, vary and enrich communication such as pronunciation, intonation and xed language expressions, grammatical structures and sentence structures.How texts and spoken language can be varied for different purposes and contexts.Different ways of working on personal communications to vary, clarify, specify and adapt them for different purposes.

Knowledge requirements for grade e at the end of year 9

Pupils can understand the main content and basic details in English spoken at a moderate pace and in basic texts in various genres. Pupils show their under standing by presenting an overview with discussion and comments on content and details and also with acceptable results act on the basis of the message and instructions in the content. To facilitate their understanding of the content of the spoken language, pupils can choose and apply a strategy for listening. Pupils can choose texts and spoken language from different media and with some relevance use the selected material in their own produc tion and interaction.

In oral and written production, pupils can express themselves simply, under standably and relatively coherently. To clarify and vary their communication, pupils can work on and make simple improvements to their communications. In oral and written interaction in different contexts, pupils can express them selves simply and understandably and also to some extent adapted to purpose, recipient and situation. In addition, pupils can choose and apply basically functional strategies which to some extent solve problems and improve their interaction.

Pupils discuss in overall terms and make simple comparisons with their own experiences and knowledge.

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Stand-Up Comedy