A report on using Real English – Lesson 20

Level: Starters just finishing their textbooks.
Topic: Spending money
Grammar points: “Want to” and “going to”
Vocabulary: Places and activities

Students had already worked with “want to” and before introducing “going to + verb”, I presented Real English –Lesson 20.
Objective: To expose students to vocabulary seen previously and to the use of “going to + noun”
http://www.real-english.com/reo/20/unit20.html

Students watched the whole video once and asked for 2 more times. The information in the video that helped understand vocabulary proved to be really useful since in their second view, they were already answering the questions the interviewer was asking.
After the second view they noticed and were curious about new vocabulary, just the very same words and expressions they are supposed to work with in the activities.
We went on with the activities and spent time giving more examples with the use of “heading to” and “on my way to”.
In activity 3, we can’t see the questions students are supposed to answer. (Ask Mike about this) So I used the pictures showing 3 types of transport to elicit answers for Where are they going? How are they going to get there?
In activity 4, students used their background knowledge to understand the expression “rushing to” Along the video, there were some nice negotiation opportunities regarding the use of new vocabulary. “Actually” is commonly mistaken with “presently” since in Spanish we have the word “Actualmente”. This was a good opportunity to clarify the use of this word. More examples were needed comparing “actually” and “presently”.
The only feature we couldn’t take advantage of was the “Record your voice” one. After the class was over it struck me that I could have brought my MP4 devise to do this. Better yet, I think I’m going to ask students to bring their MP4s so they can take their own recordings home. I can see a lot of fun doing this.
About speed, the only part that was a real challenge was with Passerby 5, who gives directions. I’m not sure about this but the map showing where this man is going is like a relief for students. Students’ affective filters get high when they are struggling too much when doing a task. The aids included in the video proved to be very helpful and prevented students from giving up.
Finally, watching the video with subtitles raised students’ expectations and prompted more questions for clarification and confirmation.

The class after the video, we worked with “going to + verb” . We commented on the Real English video as a warm up to refer students to their background knowledge.

Students’ feedback:
They liked the lesson, felt they had learned new expressions and had expanded their opportunities for exposure to the language.
They also think that it's important to see how English speakers say things using other expressions.
They would definitely like to have more of these lessons.