The Revised Lesson Plan

During my first practicum placement, I was working in an ESL English classroom. For the ESL DOI class, of which I had two sections, I was in charge of a monster unit. To kick-start the unit and get the students hooked, I showed the class a series of pictures of different monsters, without telling them the unifying theme. The idea was to get the students to think up the word 'monster' themselves, and then discuss what they thought 'made' a monster. Later in the unit, students would read a short monster story, write a quiz, and the research a chosen monster and make a short presentation to the class about it.

To show the photos on the first day of the unit, I simply opened the folder on my USB drive, clicked on the first photo, and cycled through them. The problem was that I'd named the photos after what was in them, for example, 'cyclops' or 'hydra.' A few observant students caught on relatively quickly, and began calling out the monster names as they read them. I had avoided using a Powerpoint presentation because I only have OpenOffice Impress installed on my computer, and it often has glitches when opened in Microsoft Powerpoint, and I wanted to avoid any disruptive problems. Unfortunately, the visible names somewhat ruined my hook to the unit, and for the second section of the class, I renamed all the photos to numbers to avoid the same problem.

However, if I were to redo this lesson plan, I would use Prezi to create a visually impressive presentation that goes beyond simply opening the photos in a slideshow. A number of photographs (I used fifteen) can be added into the Prezi, and linked in any desired order. I had written the monster names on the board as they were discovered, but with the Prezi, I could simply make the monster name the next screenshot. This would minimize the time I have to spend with my back to the class, and display the words in a large, clear font for easily copying. I had also shown a short clip from "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," featuring the fight scene with the basilisk. This could also be embedded in the Prezi without having to skip out to a browser window.

You can check out the new Prezi here!

At the end of fifteen photos, the Prezi would allow me to zoom out to look at all the monsters at once, to remind students of everything they had just looked at. At this point, we would discuss as a class what traits they think belong to a monster. This could be written on the board, or if there is a Smartboard available, the students could write the words themselves on the Smartboard. These traits should be divided into 'Physical Characteristics,' 'Personal Characteristics,' 'Special Powers,' and 'Purpose of Existence,' with the student explaining why they would put each trait into that particular category. If using a Smartboard, the students' answers can be shuffled around easily without having to erase and rewrite.

I believe that using a Prezi for this lesson would streamline the process of working through the photos, videos, and text that the students will be encountering. It would remove the awkward transitions between mediums, and create a single page that the students can view. If desired, the students can even look at the Prezi online after class, since it is easily available online. The Prezi can be downloaded and played offline (although this can create problems with embedded videos), so the teacher does not have to rely on a steady Internet connection to make the presentation. All in all, a Prezi paired with simple boardwork or a Smartboard would tidy up this lesson neatly, and create a cool-looking hook for the class to enjoy.