Arctic English UiT

Assignment 2: Multimodel texts

When we had our practice period, Karoline and I taught two classes that were in year 8. We decided to try out the teaching scheme more or less separately, so I had the scheme in one class and she had it in the other. When it was my turn, it was difficult to find time to do this activity, so it could not be as comprehensive as I originally wanted it to be.  I had to do it in the last 15 minutes of a lesson.

Choice of text

We chose to use a song and its lyrics for the “grammar to go” teaching scheme. The song that I chose was “Wake me up” by the artist Avicii. The reason we chose this song, is that the song is quite well known and we thought that the pupils would most likely be familiar with it. If they were familiar with the song, it would save us some time with introducing the song and the task.

The task the pupils had to do was this: Listen to the song and fill in the missing words in the lyrics.

First, they got the full lyrics on a sheet of paper, and we listened to the song. When we had done this, I asked the pupils to put away the full lyrics and I handed out a new sheet with some of the words missing. Now they had to listen to the song again, and they had to fill in the missing words.

These are the original lyrics for “Wake me up”:

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me

[2x]
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
Hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don't have any plans

Wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life's a game made for everyone
And love is the prize

[2x]
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost

Didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know (didn't know, didn't know)

And the text with missing words:

Feeling ______ way through the ___________

Guided by a beating heart

I can't tell __________ the __________ will end

But I ______ where to start

________ tell me I'm too ___________ to understand

They say I'm caught up in a dream

Well _______ will pass me by if I don't __________  up my eyes

Well that's __________

[2x]

So __________ me up when it's all _________

When I'm ________ and I'm ________

All this time I _______ finding myself

And I didn't know I was ________

I tried __________ the weight of the _________

But I only have two ________

Hope I _________ the chance to travel the world

But I don't have __________

_________ that I could stay forever this _________

Not afraid to close my eyes

Life's a __________ made for everyone

And love is the prize

[2x]

So ___________________ when it's all over

When I'm _________ and I'm ___________

All this ___________I was finding myself

And I didn't know ________________

How did they do?

The class that I had this teaching scheme with was on a bit higher level than the other class that we had in our practice period. However, it was a spread in the academic level in this class as well. Because of the short amount of time to complete this task, I could not do the summary as thoroughly as I wanted to after the task was done. When I went over what the pupils had done after the lesson, I saw that it would have been a point to go through the text with the class and show them the right way to spell the words.

Time problems

Because of the problem with time, we could not finish the task completely. The plan was to listen to the song three times. The first time the pupils had the complete version of the lyrics in front of them. After this, they got the lyrics where some of the words were missing. According to the plan, they were going to listen through the song two times, so that they would have two opportunities to fill in the words that were missing. When we got to the third time listening to the song, the time was up and I had to let them out for recess. Therefore, I did not have the time to do the scheme properly or go through the text with the pupils after the assignment was finished. 

While reflecting on this lesson afterwards, I have seen that we could have been more specific on the grammatical goals for the lesson. Now it became a task with focus on listening and spelling, without any clear grammatical goals. What we could have done, was to remove for instance all of the nouns in the text and have the pupils figure out what type of words we had removed. This way the lesson would have more grammatical goals to it. Although, this could have been difficult because of the small amount of time we had to work on this task. 

Håvard Sæbø