Предварительная информация: МОУ средняя
общеобразовательная школа № 10 с углубленным
изучением иностранного языка, г. Златоуст,
стараясь расширять возможности учащихся в
практическом общении с представителями стран
изучаемого языка, в числе прочего, приглашает
иностранных специалистов, приезжающих в
Златоуст по своим делам из Германии,
Великобритании, США, Канады, на уроки немецкого и
английского языка. В данном случае, на урок
английского языка в 11А классе был приглашен
специалист из Канады, имеющий большой опыт
работы в школе в качестве учителя английского
языка и руководителя образовательного
учреждения.
Урок был записан на магнитофон. Ниже дается
практически полная распечатка хода урока. Урок
был организован как пресс-конференция в виде
живого непринужденного общения между учащимися,
которые после полного курса Happy English (1,2,3) в рамках
учебной программы с начала года прошли первые
четыре раздела учебника NEW Millennium ENGLISH 10 (Титул,
Обнинск), и гостем из Канады. Информативная
плотность урока была достигнута благодаря
предварительному обсуждению с учащимися
страноведческой информации о Канаде, знакомство
с которой учебной программой не предусмотрено, и
достаточно высокому темпу общения на английском
языке.
Цели:
1. Знакомство с Канадой, ее историей, географией,
государственным устройством, проблемами
образования, жизнью сверстников.
2. Преодоление психологического барьера при
непосредственном общении с носителем языка,
закрепление практических навыков владения
иностранным языком как средством общения.
3. Повышение мотивации учащихся с целью
дальнейшего самостоятельного развития языковых
компетенций; развитие их творческой инициативы,
воспитание самостоятельности и активной
жизненной позиции.
Оформление классной комнаты: карта Канады, государственная символика Канады, стенды со страноведческой информацией о Канаде из мультимедийных энциклопедий Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia (USA), Encyclopedia Britannica.
Форма презентации: Трансляция из радиостудии встречи журналистов СМИ с гостем из Канады Эрнестом Эппом (Ernest Epp, Ed.D.) - волонтером CESO (Canadian Executive Service Organization) http://www.ceso-saco.com.
Ведущий: Один из учащихся 11А класса в роли ведущего радиопрограммы «Places and Faces».
Участники: Учащиеся 11А класса в роли журналистов СМИ, гость из Канады, студент лингвистического университета – выпускник школы, учитель английского языка.
Место проведения: Кабинет английского языка, оформленная как радиостудия.
Дата и время: 29.11.2003 г., урок английского языка - 40 минут.
ХОД УРОКА
Teacher: Dear boys and girls, this morning we have a great opportunity to meet here Mr. Ernest Epp, Ed.D., who arrived in our city a few days ago. We are given a chance to enjoy this English class asking and answering questions, sharing opinions on any problem you are interested to learn more about. From now on we are in a radio studio and the host of the program is Anton.
Anton: Dear friends, here is Radio Europe Plus Zlatoust. As always we are happy that you are with us. My name is Anton. The program I host is called Places and Faces. This morning I have for you something special. In the studio we have this morning a visit from Canada. Good morning, Mr. Epp. We are very glad to say hallo to you. Our listeners are mostly young people – teens – who are very much interested to get to know more about new faces and places. Will you share with us your first impressions as you arrived in Russia? Was it by plane? How did you feel about the jet lag?
Ernest Epp: Yes, it was by plane. It was a very long flight from Toronto, Canada. I see up there you have a map of Saskatchewan, a little province right there. I flew from Saskatchewan to the East for 2? hours to one of our largest cities called Toronto and then I had to change to terminal 2 and after one hour stop I flew for Frankfurt, Germany for another 7? hours. I had to wait for approximately one hour and a half again and then I boarded another Lufthansa flight to Moscow. That was my first experience of coming to Russia. It was a very long flight. I came into Moscow at 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon and somehow to my mind the jetlag was very tough. I stayed in Moscow overnight at a hotel which is about 10 or 15 minutes from Red Square. In the morning I boarded an Aeroflot flight for Chelyabinsk. So my first impression of Russia is that Russia is very large. Moscow is very large. And in the meantime I have already recovered from the jet lag; as you know it is about 12 hours. I like it here; it is a little bit like Canada. We have snow and it is winter there too.
Anton: Thank you, Sir. For the next 30 minutes Mr. Epp will be meeting in this studio with journalists of local and regional mass media who are eager to highlight the aspects in the life of our guest which should be the most interesting to their readers. Dear listeners, you are welcome to listen and even ask questions because we are live on the air. Our phone number for your calls is 55007.You can ask any question you think is to the point.
Anton to journalists: My friends, will you please introduce yourselves and say a few words about the media you represent? Come up with your questions. To start with, you can ask only one question at a time.
Galina: Here is The Gorny Ural monthly. I am happy to be here this morning. I have been working for this magazine for three years now and I am in charge for the youth column. Presently I am working at the teens’ problems and their attitude to school.
Ernest Epp: Do you want to ask about teenagers and their attitude towards school? Well, I find that teenagers are really very much the same in Canada and likely in the United States and likely in Russia. But teenagers like to have a lot of fun, to have a lot of music. They are not always interested in school and don’t always like to do their homework after hour as they need to. But meanwhile things have changes quite a lot. We find that our female teenagers – girls – are braver and bolder and they take a lot of initiative and will do more things on their own in school. Many times the leader of the students’ council – every school has its own student government – many times it’s a girl who is president.
Olga: I work for My Family monthly magazine. In our difficult world students have really many problems with other teenagers and sometimes with their parents. I’d like to ask you about similar problems in Canada. When children finish school they are expected to go to university, to choose a profession. What would you say about that, what would be your advice? Well, let’s talk about job hunting. What do young people need to get a good job?
Ernest Epp: Many young people worry about that indeed. On the other hand we can see in Canada that students who study well in public school or high school and want to get into a university they need to have really high grades otherwise they can not choose their profession. You ask what professions, what jobs need in Canada a lot of young professionals. In Canada nursing in medical field is in great demand. We have a great shortage of nurses who study for 3 years. They can almost always get a job. The other area that is still very popular in the technical field is computers, writing software. Another field is education. Many students study to become a teacher even they do not go into the school. Some large companies pick them up because they can work well and communicate well. But if you want to be a doctor, for instance, you will train approximately for 10 years after your high school. Is that close to what you wanted to know?
Anastasia: I represent a weekly newspaper Young Zlatoust. My question is about childhood. All the people start from being a child first. I think our life does very much depend on the years when we were children. I want to ask you about your childhood. How did your school years influence your profession?
Ernest Epp: My childhood was very short. I grew up in a rural community. My parents were very poor; we did not have very many good things. They were farmers and depended on the weather which was not always good for the crops. But they had enough resoluteness to send me to residential school for 3 years and then I was able to get into university. My childhood was really happy even we were not rich. We had many friends; we could always do what we wanted. That is very different from my own children who lived all way in the city.
Anton: I guess my question comes now. As we know on Thursday there was a great holiday in the United States – it was Thanksgiving. Do people celebrate this holiday in Canada? And as you are here now in Russia, did you celebrate it in Zlatoust?
Ernest Epp: Oh, that very interesting. There is a difference. In Canada Thanksgiving is around October the 15th and the United States celebrated yesterday and I saw on TV George Bush who was eating turkey! Last night I was in the theater and I didn’t have turkey for dinner. My Thanksgiving in Zlatoust was just like a working day but at home we enjoy the end of the harvest time and people usually decorate their table with pumpkins, cucumbers and other things and usually eat roast turkey. Do you eat turkey for Thanksgiving?
Teacher: I’m not sure that all people in Russia eat turkey for Thanksgiving. We have our specialties and the occasions to celebrate are different too. But still people can go shopping and get a turkey and roast it when they want something special to celebrate the end of the harvest time.
Pavel R., sophomore at the Chelyabinsk University: Can you tell us about your children? What are they?
Ernest Epp: My children are grown-ups. I’m a grandfather and our eldest son is 41, he is a history teacher at a high school; so he isn’t a teenager any more. My daughter is 39. She is a medical doctor and does a lot of surgery. Our youngest son is 32. He is engaged in research in the field of medicine in British Columbia in the very west side of Canada. So I have 3 children and 5 grandchildren.
Galina: You should be very happy. Grandparents are usually very fond of their grandchildren.
Ernest Epp: Yes, indeed, I am. There is a saying in Canada: If we knew that grandchildren would be so nice we’d have them first!.
Olga: When young people get married they face lots of problems to cope with. And to have and raise children is especially expensive. Did you have problems while raising your children? Is it expensive in Canada?
Ernest Epp: Yes, it is. But very often both parents will have a job and they will hire a lady to take care of the baby; that is quite often. It is expensive, you know. The costs in Canada to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age generally are considered to be around 130 thousand Canadian dollars. But both parents earn salaries. The average salary for let’s say a teacher starting out is approximately 35 thousand dollars a year. Because it is quite expensive the first 15 or so years they do not have so much. So we are careful. The new families are small. A family with three is large. Only people in farming area will have four sometimes five children.
Olga: Thank you, Mr. Epp. But I have one more question.
Ernest Epp: You must be a very active newspaper.
Olga: Yes, we really try to be in demand. Can teens in your country have a job?
Ernest Epp: Yes, they can do many things. If you are going to a McDonald’s you’ll see always teenagers. They work just everywhere, sometimes at a service station pumping gasoline into your car. In grocery shops, just part time, and the government say you must pay them minimum wage – approximately 6 dollars an hour. And that’s okay so.
Anton: Dear friends, we don’t have much time left, unfortunately. Only one more question, please.
Anastasia: Everyone knows that teenagers have problems. What are the most frequent teens’ problems in Canada?
Ernest Epp: That’s a good question. We do have some serious problems. Sometimes when parents get divorced the children get very frustrated, they do not feel stable. Adolescents, these are children of 13 to 16 years of age, they start misbehaving in school and they have trouble with alcohol. You have to be 19 to buy alcohol but they still get. There are not many of them. Mostly children are very nice. One more problem we do have is teens in the first nations – Indian people. Teenage girls have babies – too many – that is a problem. How to cope with them? I think that school and parents should work together with the community and government. It is very important that society: home, the police, the school, the health service – they all work together so that the little one grows up in a healthy social environment.
Anton: Thank you so much, Sir, that you could come to share with our listeners your life experience and give us the chance to get to know more about Canada. Thank you again, and I wish only this broadcast could be listened to in your home city of Saskatoon, Canada and your fellow citizens could learn that we in Zlatoust, Russia admire their countryman Dr. Ernest Epp! We wish every success to you and to your family!
Teacher to students: Thank you to everyone for your contribution.
Your have to do some writing at home. It is to be in a form of an article for your
magazine or newspaper about this meeting. Optional it can be a letter to your friend or
entry into a feelings diary.
Teacher to the guest: Dear Mr. Epp, we appreciate very much
that you could come and be here with us.
Ernest Epp: It was very nice to be here and I would like to see what you write in your journals. This was an excellent experience for me. You were creative and fluent. I wish you all the best and some day I might see you in Canada.
OUTCOME OF THE PROJECT
“Places and Faces on Radio Europe Plus Zlatoust”
Anastasia P.: I liked this press conference very much. Dr. Epp is a very
interesting gentleman. I think you should be lucky if you get to know a man like him. I
think we need badly meetings like this one. It’s also a great opportunity to improve our
language skills.
Galina K.: I enjoyed this session very much. It is very useful for students to listen and learn how to respond to real English.
Olga K.: I can say that it was a very important day in my life. I see now that it’s not so easy to listen and understand live English, even Canadian English. It is quite different from what we have in our textbooks.
Jane P.: I got impression that Dr Epp is a good mixer. I enjoyed very much his way to explain things.
Anton G., host of the program Places and Faces: In my opinion the conference went on quite lively. The questions of journalists were sometimes too detailed but Dr Epp was great! That’s my impression.
Pavel R., sophomore at Chelyabinsk State University: Never could I imagine I would ever attend a live press conference with a teacher from Canada in our school. I wish we could have a chance like this two years ago when we were school students here.
Valerian Tukbaev, English teacher: I am happy Dr Ernest Epp could come to share with us his life and professional experience and I am proud of my students who have done their fair share for this session to be success.
Ernest J. Epp, D.Ed. CESO volunteer: This was an excellent experience for me. You were creative and fluent. I wish you all the best and some day I might see you in Canada.