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Bringing Shakespeare into the ESL Classroom/ Sample Lesson Plan



Bringing Shakespeare into an ESL classroom can be quite a challenging task for any level. People either love or hate Shakespeare. In order to make it more engaging, it is great to use vocabulary that the Ss will find interesting and to use pictures that will spark their imagination.

Topic: Family and Shakespeare

Primary Aim: to enable the Ss to use the following lexical items dead, enemy, revenge, land, power, and jealous when talking about family.

Type of Lesson:  Receptive Skills Lesson

LEAD IN
T tells the Ss a story about a time he fought with a family member. Ss then share their own stories with their classmates. Brief content feedback between T and Ss.

PRE TEACH VOCABULARY
                T preteaches the following vocabulary words in this order:

Dead (Picture)- Is this person alive? No . This person is _____________.
Enemy (Picture)- The opposite of friend is __________.
Revenge (Anecdote)- This person wanted _____________. Why?
Land (Picture)- What is this?
Power (Picture)- What does the person on top have? When someone is strong, they have a lot of _______. The President has more _________ than a regular person.
Jealous (Picture/ Anecdote)- When someone has something you want, you feel __________.

PRE-READING TASK
Use pictures depicting scenes in Shakespeare plays to show what happens in Shakespeare plays.
T asks Ss to look at the pictures in groups and discuss what do these pictures have in common and what they think the plays are about.
Have students say “I think this play is about…… because …….”
Content Feedback

GIST READING
Have students quickly read short excerpts about each play. T posts the excerpts around the room. Ss go around the room in pairs trying to determine if the story is a happy or unhappy one.  
Ss compare their answers in content feedback.

DETAILED READING
Ss get another opportunity to read the excerpts. This time they need to reread the excerpts and decided why or why not the story is a happy or unhappy one.

EXTENSION TASK
Complete a story with pictures from Shakespeare films. 

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