Extreme Weather. Natural Disasters.

Form: 9
Topic: Extreme Weather. Natural Disasters.
Lesson type – урок застосування знань, умінь і навичок
(за підручником Upstream B1+ Virginia Evans – Jenny Dooley)
Aims:

• practical – to facilitate learners’ communicative skills through video viewing comprehension;

• educational – to widen  pupils’ knowledge about the world disasters and their possible consequences;
• cultural – to promote positive attitude towards each other’s opinion;

• developmental – to develop logical thinking and problem solving abilities, to teach learners to draw conclusions

Equipment: a textbook Upstream B1+, a workbook Upstream  B1+, a blackboard, video extracts, the UK map, different pictures, handouts with the tasks, a laptop with loudspeakers, charts, PowerPoint presentation, evaluation cards.

Structure of the lesson

1. Organisation of the lesson (3 min.)
2. Warming up (2 min.)
3. Vocabulary practice (15 min.)
4. Video-viewing skills development (8 min.)
5. Speaking skills development (10 min.)
6. Conclusions of the lesson (4 min.)
7. Setting the hometask, evaluation (3 min.)

Procedure of the lesson

1. Organisation of the lesson

Teacher: Good morning, children! You look great and I am very happy to see you today. I hope you’re in a good mood and will be hard-working and active at the lesson as we are going to speak about… And now I want to see if you are awake not sleepy. You can guess the topic by the first letters in the words I am going to name. So, it can be wonderful, excellent, awful, terrible, harmful, enjoyable and relaxing. You are right – it’s WEATHER.

Teacher: Oh, I forgot that my friend from Florida, the USA sent me a home video just before our lesson. Would you like to watch it with me? But I don’t know what the video is about so I would ask you to turn with your backs to the blackboard. You will listen and guess what it shows.

The learners share with their ideas

(e.g. a coming storm, strong wind is blowing, a hurricane, etc.)

Teacher: Now let us watch what is going on. As you see, weather can be good and bad, it can be our friend or our enemy. Tell me what do you KNOW about weather? Today we will speak about extreme weather conditions and natural disasters. We will do quite a lot of today – read, guess, share our opinions, work in pairs and in groups and I hope our work will be successful. Everyone has got an Evaluation card which will help both me and you to follow your progress at the lesson. After the certain tasks you are to tick the results of your work and at the end we will count and see. Don’t be lazybones, otherwise you will know nothing about the weather.

	Great job!	OK!	Poor!
Vocabulary drilling
Hometask
Video watching
Speaking

2. Warming up (Stepping stones)

Teacher: We will start our lesson trip with jumping. Imagine you are to cross the river by stones. Move from good weather conditions to a happy smile and from bad weather conditions to a sad smile.

I guess…

I suppose…

I am sure…

To my mind,…

In my opinion…

          warm and cloudless                     heatwave                   drizzle

                                         warm and sunny

           wet and muddy                                            downpour

                   sleet                          breeze

                    sunshine                          snowdrifts

good weather                  bad weather

  conditions                     conditions

3. Vocabulary practice

Teacher: Tastes differ, of course. Every person enjoys this or that weather conditions. But tell me, what type of weather makes you feel:

•  upset and depressedpleased and happy
• relaxed and calm
• indifferent
• angry and irritated

I feel … when the weather is /when it is … 

What is your favourite weather?

Teacher: How can people know about the weather for the following days? (weather forecast)

1. Checking the hometask

Teacher: Let us check your hometask and predict the weather for the UK for tomorrow. WB ex.5, p.68
What is the weather going to be in:

• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• York and North East England
• Southwest England and Wales
• London and South East England

Teacher: I have taken the information from the BBC weather website. Let us see what the weather is going to be in some world places. Look at the chart and stick the suitable weather icon to the map.

e.g. In Sydney it is going to be sunny and hot with possible drizzle. The temperature will be 29°C.

b) Vocabulary introduction
Teacher: Work in pairs. Each pair gats a vocabulary grid. You task is to cross out that word the definition of which you hear.

thunderbolt	sunshine	earthquake	hurricane	blizzard
hailstorm	sleet	avalanche	foggy	muddy
snowfall	tsunami	heatwave	drought	flood
tornado	drizzle	chilly	volcanic eruption	breeze

1. Drizzle – a light rain falling in small drops
2. Sunshine – direct sunlight without any clouds nearby
3. Muddy – covered in or full of mud
4. Fog – a thick cloud in the atmosphere where you can hardly see in a distance
5. Chilly – uncomfortably cold
6. Breeze – a gentle wind
7. Sleet – rain with some ice when snow melts when it falls
8. Heatwave – a long period of hot weather
9. Snowfall – a fall of snowflakes
10. Blizzard – a snowstorm with wind

Teacher: So, there are 10 words left. How can you name them in one word? (natural disasters). What do WANT to know about natural disasters?

It seems to me that … I am totally sure that … I couldn’t say different but … It is absolutely clear that … I am convinced … I can say that …

c) Vocabulary matching
Teacher: Read the definition of a disaster, choose an appropriate word and check by looking at the picture.

• a large amount of ice, snow and rock falling down the mountain (avalanche)
• a flash of lightning and a sound of thunder together (thunderbolt)
• a large amount of water covering an area that is usually dry (flood)
• a heavy fall of hailstones (hailstorm)
•  a violent wind with circular movement (hurricane)
• a sudden movement of the earth’s surface (earthquake)
• a long period with little or no rain (drought)
• an explosion of a volcano (volcanic eruption)
• a dangerous wind with upside-down movement (tornado)
• a huge wave caused by movements in the sea (tsunami)

Teacher: Which of these conditions were people below caught? What do you think happened? SB ex. 4, p. 104

4. Video-viewing skills development
Teacher: How do you think what is the most dangerous disaster?
Work with headlines: match the headline to the picture expand it as much as you can by adding extra information you happen to know about news item in question (when, where, how many, etc.) Keep within one sentence limit.
What disaster will be mentioned in the video?
(learner give their predictions)

Mark the statements T (True) or F (False) while watching. Then correct the false statements if any happen.
What can be the consequences of the hurricane?

Hidden pictures. Your task is to come to the blackboard one by one, turn the picture and tell the result of the hurricane you see.

5. Speaking skills development

Teacher: What disasters can occur in Ukraine? Whatever a disaster but it brings harm and damage.
Let us discuss the results of the most common disasters in Ukraine.

Floods

Forest fires

Thunderstorms

Teacher: Have you ever experienced any disaster? What happened? How did you feel? Now you are going to work in 3 groups. Each group will have their picture. We’ll have the best story competition. Imagine you witnessed a disaster. Complete the question map to make up a 10-sentence story about it.

1st group                                          2nd group                               3rd group

   Flood                                               Forest fire                               Thunderstorm

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

-                                                                     -                                                         -

WHO were with you
WHAT happened
WHEN it happened
WHERE it happened
HOW did you feel

Choose one leader to present your story to the public.

6. Conclusions of the lesson, evaluation

Teacher: Let me see what you have LEARNT at the lesson today. Choose one quote which best describes the topic of our lesson and comment on it briefly.

1. We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge.
2. There’s no one in this room who doesn’t understand that the sooner you are prepared the safer you will be.
3. Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.

7. Setting the hometask

Teacher: You have already learnt much about weather and disasters today. You were really hard-workers and it is just the time to have a look at your evaluation cards.

You have worked in 3 groups and now I have 3 hometasks for each group.
So, the 1^st group, be attentive. You are to create a web page Natural Disasters to demonstrate any 5 disasters. The 2^nd group, you are to create a brochure about disasters in Ukraine and their harm. And, of course, the 3^rd group. You are to write an e-mail to your pen friend about the disasters you are afraid most of all.