lesson plan/ Al Capone

Activity 1

Are these statements true or false?

1. Capone’s parents were from Sicily in Italy.

2. He left school when he was 15.

3. He was a member of the Five Points Gang in New York.

4. He got married before he became a father.

5. His son was called Albert.

6. The people of Chicago first thought Capone was a hero.

7. His men killed Bugs Moran on St. Valentine’s Day.

8. He was sent to prison for financial crimes.

Activity 2

Answer these questions:

1. When was Capone born?

2. How many children did his parents have in total?

3. Why did he leave school?

4. How did he get the nickname ‘Scarface’?

5. What is bootlegging?

6. How old was he when he became the ‘boss’ of Chicago?

7. Who were The Untouchables?

8. How long was he sent to prison for?

9. When and where did he die?

Transcript

One of the most notorious criminals in American history is surely Alphonse Gabriel Capone, or more simply Al Capone. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 17th 1899 although his parents were originally from Naples in Italy. He came from a large family, having six brothers and two sisters.

Capone’s life of crime started at an early age after he was expelled from school for seriously attacking one of his teachers. He was only 14. So instead of studying, he joined one or two small gangs before he joined one of the largest and most notorious in all of New York – the Five Points Gang. It was while in this gang that he had a knife fight with another gangster and his cheek was cut very deeply. This is how he got his most famous nickname, Scarface.

When he was 19 he became a father and soon after he married the young Irish woman who was the child’s mother. The baby boy was called Albert, but his nickname was Sonny. The next year Capone was sent to work in Chicago because the New York Police were looking for him in connection with two murders.

In Chicago he helped to organise bootlegging. This means that he distributed alcohol in the city even though alcohol was banned at the time. This was the Prohibition era and the bootlegging was a very good business for the gangsters. By the time Scarface was 26 he was controlling the biggest gang in Chicago. He had thousands of people working for him, and even had policemen and politicians on his ‘payroll’. He was even more powerful then the Mayor of Chicago. He was very popular with the local people and he helped many people who were in financial difficulty. They considered him as a kind of hero.

One of the most famous events in Chicago’s history was the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Scarface wanted to eliminate a rival gang boss, Bugs Moran, so he sent his men disguised as police officers to their warehouse and killed seven of the gang. Bugs Moran was late for this particular meeting so he survived. However, this event helped to change the public’s opinion of Capone and he started to become less popular.

The police never officially found out who was responsible for these killings and so Scarface was not arrested. However, by this time he was officially Public Enemy Number One – another of his nicknames. The police still wanted to arrest him but could not link him to any of the crime in the city. Instead, the city called in a group of loyal and honest men from the Treasury department to investigate Capone’s finances. They were called The Untouchables and their leader was Elliot Ness. After a lot of investigating Capone was finally arrested for not paying his taxes and sentenced to eleven years in prison. Most of this time was spent in the famous prison, Alcatraz. He had a difficult time in prison and outside his business empire collapsed. This caused his mental health to suffer and he eventually went mad.

He tried to rebuild his business when he was released from Alcatraz but he failed, so he moved to Miami and retired. He died on 24th January 1947 from a stroke and was buried in Chicago between the graves of his father and brother.

http://www.eslpodcards.com/usa/brooklyn.php 07.07.09

Time	Course of the class/ phase and content	activity	Media/material	objectives
5 min	Opening of the lesson	Brainstorming Al Capone	Blackboard	Activation of previous knowlege
10 min	Introduction into the topic/ pre-reading activity	Listening to the podcast ( 2 times)	Mp3 player /computer	Listening comprehension
5 min	While- reading activity	Reading the transcription	sheet	Reading comprehension
15 min	Post-reading activity	Answer questionsheet	sheet	Understanding the content
10 min	conclusion	Comparing the results	blackboard	Saving results

blog task #6

In this blog task, we are supposed to think of a dream-project that makes use of new media. When I was thinking about that task, I realized that my dream-project would definetely be about the Amercian Dream which is part of the curriculum. In this teaching unit, pupils should learn how to analyze a movie concerning this topic after having dealt with the Amercian Dream in general. The movie I thought of is called “pursuit of happiness”. As Will Smith is the main character, the students might be interested in this movie. The story is about him and his son. Will Smith doesn’t make enough money to pay a house or even food for his little son. He tries to study further in order to earn more money. In my opinion, this movie is very authentic even if the end is, as we know it from many amercian movies, very optimistic. In the teaching unit, the class would be devided into groups of 5. Every pupil would get a question-sheet which they could work with during the movie. After the movie, the students should present their results and go on working in the groups. Each group would get one question concerning the American Dream and do some research on the Internet. Here are some ideas for the questions/tasks:

1)      Find  examples of individual people who talk about their experiences with the American dream. What can you say about their expectations and the actual outcome? Present the individual stories and a conclusion in front of the class.

2)      What do you think about the movie? Are there any differences in reality? Can you think of another end (positive or negative)?

3)      In how far did your understanding of the Amercian Dream  change after having watched the movie? Are you surprised about the story/end/development?

I know that these tasks wouldn’t be done in one session but as we have no restrictions or time limits for this idea, I am convinced that this way of working with the Amercian dream in the Oberstufe would be motivating and interesting for the pupils. In my opinion, people don’t forget movies soon. Working with boring texts on the contrary isn’t usually stored in their memories for a long time.

Blog Task #5

In this blog entry, I am going to write about my interview with a 17 year old girl, talking about her experiences with new media in school.

 

The first question I asked her was the following: Do you see differences in the climate of the class when comparing old methods with the use of new media in school?

 

Surprisingly, she told me that she liked standard-methods such as using the blackboard better than the use of new media. The problem is that many of her teachers don’t really know how to deal with technical problems that often appear. This stops fluency in class and thus, pupils lose their interest. However, she seemed convinced that most of the pupils are more motivated when knowing that new media is going to be involved in a lesson. Pupils love to watch movies or using the computer  as it is less boring than starring at the teacher all the time. Another problem is that there are many pupils who are not used to working with a computer but it is a chance for the pupils to help each other. This is why new media can encourage a good climate in class. Most of the old methods and media are boring and frustrating to the students.

 

As a second question, I wanted to know if there are special subjects in which new media is used more often than in others.

 

Her answer was that teachers of  biology, chemistry and other sciences sometimes make use of dvd-players or videos whereas language teachers are more “old-fashioned”! Maybe there is more material existing for sciences. Nevertheless, she told me that it would be fun to watch movies dealing with books as it is easier to remember them with this method. Doing research on the Internet to get background information would be an alternative to the standard-methods but is rarely used nowadays.

Blog task #4

In this blog task, we are supposed to wirte about a teaching project that makes use of the New Media. As I wasn’t happy with the results I got from the Internet and newspapers, I would like to write about a very interesting project that took place in my own school.

At that time, I was in grade 9 or 10 and our topic was London.  My s chool (Philipp-Reis Schule Friedrichsdorf) was one of the Top 10 Media Schools in Hessen and so, we went into one of our computer-rooms and devided the class into groups of 3. Each group got a topic about London (Big Ben, Tower Bridge…) and had to find information in the Internet. Later on, we had to create posters and present them in class. It was a very interesting teaching unit as we had to do research on our own and to be creative because of the poster. During the lessons, our teacher helped us with the computers. Nearly every pupil new  that google would be a great starting point for our research. I remember that the examen we had in the end of the unit was very successful for most of us. It was fun to present a topic in little groups and to talk about it in class instead of the boring Frontalunterricht that many teachers use without motivation.

Blog task #3

In the following blog entry we are going to present two examples of learning software, namely “Teen Talk” and “Englisch Klasse 7- Lernpaket”.

Teen talk focuses on listening comprehensions about various topics, such as school, food, hobbies, future, etc. It has to be mentioned that it is sometimes difficult to understand the different speakers, since they are all native speakers. On the other hand, this is also one of the advantages of the software, since it provides authentic language samples. Besides, it is usually possible to have a look at the written form of a spoken sample.The software provides interesting types of exercises, i.e. matching activities, etc. We liked the idea of training communicative skills by presenting authentic language but it is obvious that the software does not serve the purpose of teaching grammar, although it contains some grammar exercises. We think that the design of the software is good, since almost every piece of spoken language is usually accompanied by a little video of the speaker.

Lernpaket Englisch is a learning software designed for students of the 7^th grade. The different exercises can be chosen according to various fields of interest, such as family, shopping, etc. Besides, the learner has to choose a certain grammatical subject. One disadvantage of this software is the fact that the learner just has to click on different buttons instead of typing the answers himself in most cases. Besides, all the task descriptions, as well as the little games included in the software, are written in German. Another weak aspect of this software is the design of the exercises, which sometimes seem to be appropriate for younger students. A last difficulty we experienced was a technical problem, since the software announced a system error while it was running. The overall layout is ok and the software is well-structured. Besides, we liked the feedback functions, i.e. the statistics that show the learner which aspects of the language he has already mastered. The listening comprehensions in this software are easily understandable but sometimes the exercises get too easy since the software also offers some hints for finding the right solution.

We wouldn’t actually recommend the two softwares for the use in class, although some of the interviews of  Teen Talk might be used as a listening comprehension in school. One idea might be to act out the different interviews in class or to improve the listening comprehension skills by using some of the exercises from the software. Englisch Lernpaket might be useful for private use at home in order to improve the language skills but it does not seem to be appropriate as a tool in school education.

(in cooperation with Fabian Debus)

Blog Task II, poster about multicultural and cooperative learning

I would like to comment on the poster about multicultural and cooperative learning because I liked the keywords the group provided. I really think that the group came up with some great ideas and in my opinion, the poster is very clearly arranged. Nevertheless, the group could have been a little more creative but there are coloured titles (communication, presentation, research) and good ideas (skype, emails, chat, homepages, search engines etc.). I can’t think of something they missed out ! interesting poster about the role that the internet plays in multicultural and cooperative learning

Blog Task I: Why using the new media in foreign language education?

Nowadays, the new media like blackberries, PCs, notebooks and mobile phones play an important role in the teenagers’ lives and almost no job is done without a computer which facilitates almost everything. It is thus obvious that we as future language teachers have to include the media in our lessons. In what follows, you can find good reasons for using it in the classroom:

First of all, it is clear that today’s students are more interested in computers than in books. Therefore, it is very easy to catch their attention and interest by using the new media in class. Nevertheless, we have to be aware of the fact that students tend to ignore the importance of books. So both things have to be used in class.

Moreover, the Internet and New Media provide a great variety of information and interesting extras such as links, quizzes, songs, platforms for communication, movies etc. but it should not be forgotten that an overlfow of information cannot be avoided easily. This overflow is not helpful for students as they might lose orientation and have difficulties in finding the most important things.

Furthermore, we have to be aware of the fact that students have to get used to work with the new media in order to get a job later on. In the beginning, the use of new media has to be learned but this is not to hard for most of them . They should be taught that there is always a danger of dependence on the Internet but it is great that they can repeat tasks in the Internet  if they still have problems after the first try.

In addition to that, consulting the Internet is very time-saving which is essential during the 21^st century. On the contrary, technical problems might arise and it is surely difficult to control 30 pupils in a class because of never being sure if everyone really does the tasks instead of something else like chatting. This is why it is useful to be able to block the pupils’computers from time to time I think. So you can be sure that they are really listening to you!

Another important fact to mention is that the teachers can give the students a chance of contacting other pupils in foreign countries via email which can be very helpful because of new vocabulary they learn without really being aware of  it. Emailing makes fun and is thus a very student-centered method of learning before a student-exchange for example. Students become friends and help each other with the new language.

The most important point in my opinion is that you can motivate each learner-type with a computer, CDS or movies because of different programs that encourage audio-learner-types but also visual learners. The diversity of methods is very big.The use of new media is thus very student-centered and indispensable.

Hello everybody out there :)

Welcome everybody to my first blog created to talk about Media in Foreign Language Education!