Students

Older teenagers and adults. Level: intermediate. Location: their native town in Mexico (EFL) in a small, rustic classroom with few amenities. Purpose of learning English: unknown as yet. For this exercise, I will assume it’s to gain English language skills for use in the US.

Theme

John Henry: Steel Drivin’ Man (the American legendary hero who raced a machine and won)

Materials

• Computer and built-in speakers
• Audio: 2:10 introduction to a radio documentary aired on National Public Radio about the John Henry legend
• Audio: Excerpted voices saying the same two words in a range of native accents.
• Visual representations of John Henry, a steam drill, a hand drill, West Virginia countryside
• Transcription of audio

Objective

Focus on comprehension as preliminary to production. Improve listening and deductive skills by engaging students in a multifaceted, traditional story to explore as a thread over several class sessions. Improve skills of listening for gist and for pronunciation discrimination. Over the long term, we will make ties between this legend and Mexican equivalents and do restructuring exercises for grammar and intonation.

Goals

The lesson will use listening to compare regional pronunciation. A later lesson with a different piece of text can look at how tone expresses mood and intent. The thread can continue by exploring other auditory manifestations of grammar, while maintaining the discussing of folk stories and their magic and meaning in Mexico, the US and worldwide.

The initial exercise(s) don’t require advanced vocabulary

Comprehension

Comparison of some American English phonology

Cultural Context

• The John Henry legend as a window into American folklore
• Compare it to themes in Mexican folklore
• The role of the hero in cultural legends
• Suggestions from my team: Give more context into what they’ll hear: bg on the story and on folklore. Maybe bring a book.

By the end of the lesson, students will have…

• Explored the difference between American pronunciation: “unaccented” vs. regional
• Gotten a glimpse into an American legend
• Made parallels to their own legends

Areas of listening

• Bottom up, providing students necessary information in pre-listening as tools to spot differences in characteristics of pronunciation of the same word
• Noticing
• Peripheral attention

Vocabulary, grammatical structures, phonological elements

Phonology will be the focus. Some vocabulary as identified by students as areas of curiosity.

What I expect students will have trouble with

Perceiving the difference between accents and sentence rhythm. Trying to free themselves from the burden of understanding meaning in order to listen just for sound.

How to assess students

• Determine if they can create two different pronunciations of the word “John Henry.”

Time	Stage	Procedure/Steps	Listening Skills	Materials
5 5 3	pre	Background on JH legend and American legends in general. Teacher asks 2 or 3 Ss to name a legend from Mexico. Teacher writes “John Henry” on the board. Shows pix of John Henry and briefly explains him. Introduces audio: beginning of documentary; not a conversation but many voices. Teacher explains assignment: listen but don’t try to understand words. Just pay attention to how many times do Ss hear the words “John Henry”?	content schema-building textual & content schema-building activating interest; bottom up instructions	photos
3	in	Teacher plays 2:10 tape about John Henry. (Could shorten this). Ask Ss to tally number of times they hear the words “John Henry”	bottom up; noticing; intensive listening	audio (authentic, teacher-prepared materials)
10	post	What did Ss notice about the ways people said “John Henry”? Were they the same? Different? Explain. Did Ss “get” anything else about John Henry while listening for the other elements? Any words jump out that you want to know more about?	evaluating,inference peripheral attention	discussion
5	in	Ss listen to the seven versions of “John Henry,” one at a time. T repeats them. Students repeat them. Try to identify differences in volume, length, vowel pronunciation.	L for specific info, intensive listening	audio
10	post	Discussion: Why do these differences exist? Application of this concept to their lives: in US, they’ll encounter many different accents.		blackboard
4	in	Play one verse of song. Ss close eyes and picture the scene. Large man racing against a machine. Ss told not to worry if they can’t get the words. Just get the mood.	Listening for gist, extensive listening	audio, photos
10	post	Hand out lyrics to the verse they’ve just heard, as well as to the excerpt at the beginning of class. Discussion: Talk about a cultural hero in Mexico. Why do we need heroes? Later: could do story and illustration.
Total exercise: 50:00