LESSON PLAN
Gwendolyn Szymkowicz
Date: July 14, 2008
Grade 3 – Body Language
Lesson Objective:
Students will learn about body language: what it is and how it affects communication. They will be able to recognize specific emotions by looking at pictures, and learn to react appropriately.
1. Lesson Outline: Teacher will introduce the term body language, and demonstrate how it can affect other people and make communication more powerful.
2. Standards: New York State English Language Arts Learning Standard 4, language for social interaction. Students will listen, speak, read, and write for social interaction. Students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for effective social communication with a wide variety of people. As readers and listeners, they will use the social communications of others to enrich their understanding of people and their views.
3. Motivation: The students will be asked what languages they speak, or are learning at school, for example, Spanish, French, or Italian. The teacher will then tell the students that they already know another language besides English, and it doesn’t even require talking. The teacher will then ask the students if they can speak without talking. Using exaggerated expressions, the teacher will “ask” two or three students, then look confused, using body language.
4. Development: The teacher will ask the students how many languages they speak, then tell them that they know one of which they aren’t even aware. Body language is a way of communicating without speaking. It is communicating with parts of your body, usually your eyes, face, hands/fingers, arms, and body position. It can be positive (smiling and nodding), or negative (frowning with your arms folded). People use body language automatically all the time. If you can interpret body language, you can make a good guess about what others are thinking and what they really mean. Being a good “reader” of body language can help you understand a situation, and act appropriately. Not only do you use body language to help you understand others, but also your own body language can send powerful messages about you. Emotions are particularly expressed through body language, where the body can tell a lot more about how you feel than your words. In particular, if you feel unable to express emotions verbally, your body language can send a clear message.
The teacher will then show different emotions through body language, and the students will try to guess how she is acting. After each emotion, we will discuss an appropriate response. Throughout the lesson, the term “appropriate response” will be used. The teacher will explain that an “appropriate response” is what most people would feel or expect. An appropriate response to a frustrated person would be to ask if there is anything you could do to help them. It would not be appropriate, or nice, to ask them to help you with something. It would be appropriate, or allowed, to ask the happy person to help you. What about the sad person? Would it be appropriate to ask them to help you with something? Probably not, but it would be a nice thing to ask them if you could help them.
Next, the teacher will hand out cards with emotion words printed on them, and display pictures on the board. The students will be asked to go up to the board one at a time and find the picture that matches the word that they have. Once they match up their word with a picture, each student will be asked to give an appropriate response.
The last picture will be “happy”. We will discuss how emotions can be contagious, or very catchy. Just like you can “catch” a cold from someone, you can also “catch” some emotions, and happy can be very “catchy”. The teacher will explain to the students that they should be like fisherman, but instead of fish, they should try to catch smiles, at least three each day.
5. Evaluation: The students will be able to identify emotions through facial expressions, match words to the pictures, and express an appropriate response.