EASTER

UNIVERSITÁ DEGLI STUDI DELLA CALABRIA

SCUOLA DI SPECIALIZZAZIONE ALL’INSEGNAMENTO SECONDARIO

INDIRIZZO LINGUE STRANIERE: INGLESE 45/A

MODULO: ABILITÁ ORALI E SCRITTE

MODULE

EASTER

IL DOCENTE L’ALLIEVA

Prof. P. GENTILE COSENTINO ISABELLA

A.A. 2003/2004

EASTER

Class: The third year of Scuola Media

Level A2

Timing: 12 hours

Formative Objectives	- To acquire a global knowledge about the English Easter period. - Comparative/Contrastive Analysis between British/American Easter period and the Mediterranean one. - Reinforcing/Promoting a wider knowledge. - Consolidation and Strengthening linguistic competence.
Linguistic objectives	- Learning vocabulary related to Easter and becoming familiar with the English Easter period.
Operative strategies	Reading : pre-reading; while-reading; after-reading. - Listening activities. - Speaking activities. Reading - Note-taking and summarising.
Linguistic pre-requisites	- To have a sufficient range of language to be able to give clear descriptions, express view points and develop arguments without much conspicuous searching for words, using some complex sentence forms to do so.
Topics	- Easter: British religious and secular traditions.
Skills	- Revision of Easter vocabulary. - Reading/Completing a form. - Listening: pre-task to focus attention, then for specific items. - Reading: from notes, expanding notes orally into full sentences.

Contained

- Revision of Present - Past - Present perfect.

- The passive.

- Preposition of place. Time expressions.

Warm up: Spidergram.

eggs Easter Sunday

peace Good Friday

lamb Holy week

rabbit Lent

hare Easter period

E A S T E R

Christ spring

Jerusalem celebration

Golgotha rituals

Crucifixion ceremonies

Resurrection rites

MODULE

Unit	Title	Objectives	Timing
1	The Origins of Easter	To acquire a global knowledge about the English Easter period. Reinforcing/Promoting a global comprehension of a written text. Consolidation and Strengthening linguistic competence.	3.1/2 h
2	Easter Traditions in Britain and the U.S.A.	Comparative/Contrastive Analysis between British/American Easter period and the Mediterranean one. To acquire strategies of reading: skimming and scanning.	3.1/2 h
3	Easter poems by children. My Easter	Introducing the reading of the student’s works in class.	4.00 h
….	Testing		1.00 h

Unit 1: The Origins of Easter

	Phases	Strategies	Timing
1	Comunicative context. Descriptive text: The origins of Easter	Listening activities.	30’
2	Comprehension	T/F/unstated Gap-filling	30’
3	Acquisition	Cloze Fill in	1.00 h
4	Consolidation and Strengthening linguistic competence.	Gap-filling; Class discussion	30’
5	Formative verification	Oral production: class discussion about The Origins of Easter Written production: Questions	1.00 h

The origins of Easter

According to the Venerable Bede, a Christian historian and theologician of the 8^th century, the name ‘Easter’ derive from the festival of Eostre, the Germanic goddess of spring and dawn. She was venerated by the Anglo-Saxon in Great Britain and the festival of Easter was named after her.

Many of its symbols are connected with birth, good luck and fertility, such as eggs and rabbits. Brightly-coloured eggs in fact were (and still are) presented as gifts and charms to bring fertility. As to the rabbits, legend says that there was a bird that wished to be a rabbit and the goddess Eostre turned it into a real rabbit. In gratitude the rabbit came each spring and laid beautiful eggs (it still remembered how to do it).

Nowadays we find the rabbit in the Easter Bunny tradition (bunny, by the way, is a child’s name for rabbit).

a) Write T/F/unstated:

1. The Venerable Bede was a poet of the 8^th centuary ……………

2. The name of the spring goddess was Easter ……………

3. The eggs was a pagan symbol …………

4. The rabbit was originally a bird …………

5. Easter Bunny stands for Easter Rabbit …………

6. The tradition of the Bunny is typically Italian …………

b) Gap-filling activity:

1. The name Easter derives from the goddess ………………………

2. This goddess was of ………… origin

3. She was venerated in …………………

4. The symbols connected with the Easter festival were …………and ……….

5. Symbol number one represents…………, symbol number two is synonymous with……

6. Instead of the Easter Rabbit we speak of the Easter ………………….

Cloze:

c) Cloze:

In the ………………… century there lived a historian called …………….. According to him, the name …………… derives from Eostre, the ………….. goddess of ……………. and ……………..

d) Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the to be:

1. In Britain there lived a scholar whose name ………. Bede

2. The adjective attributed to him …………. Venerable

3. There ……….. at least two important symbols connected with the spring festival

4. The rabbit of the legend ……… at the beginning a bird

5. The rabbit …………… able to lay eggs

6. The eggs …………, and still are, the symbol of fertility

From comprehension to written production: group-work analysis of The origins of Easter to characterize the keywords.

What do you remember of the origins of Easter?

Speak for ½ minutes.

Written comprehension: questions.

1. Who as the Venerable Bede?

2. Where does the name Easter derive from, according to him?

3. What are the two symbols of Easter?

4. What do they stand for?

Unit 2. Easter: British religious and secular traditions

Phases	Activity	Strategies	Timing
1	Comunicative context. Descriptive text: The story of “Hot cross buns”	Skimming.	30’
2	Comprehension	Matching Note tacking	30’
3	Acquisition	cloze. summarize.	1.00 h
4	Consolidation and Strengthening linguistic competence.	M/C; scanning	30’
5	Formative verification	Description of English Easter Traditions and contrastive analysis and the Mediterranean ones. Introducing the reading of the student’s works in class. (T/F); questions.	1.00 h

Unit 3: Easter Poems by Children. My Easter.

Phases	Activity	Strategies	Timing
1	Class discussion. Introducing the reading of the student’s works in class	Listening of Easter poems by childrens.	30’
2	Comprehension	T/F activity (poem 1) Questions (poem 2)	30’
3	Acquisition	Memorization Dramatization	1.00 h
4	Consolidation and Strengthening linguistic competence.	Written production Thin poem: Easter for me is ….	1.00 h
5	Formative verification	Oral production: Reciting Written production: Gap-filling activity Write an Easter card to your pen-friend. or Write a letter to your pen-friend: describe the Easter traditions of your town, what you usually do on Easter day, what present you hope to receive, etc.	1.00 h

Evaluation criteria

Written production

GOOD

SATISFACTORY

POOR

SKILLS

TIME

1. Focus on topic

2. Selection of contents

3. Accuracy

4. Development of ideas

5. Text structure

6. Vocabulary

7. Spelling

8. Personal analysis

- matching activity (6 items)

- T/F/unstated (6 items)

- arranging pictures to form a story sequenze (4)

- M/C (6 items)

- ‘cloze’ (8 items)

5’

15’

10’

20’

Evaluation criteria

Oral production

GOOD

SATISFACTORY

POOR

1. Oral reception

2. Oral production

3. Interaction

4. Accuracy

5. Vocabulary

6. Pronunciation/Intonation

7. Use of strategies

8. Mediation

COSENTINO ISABELLA