Macbeth I

From my point of view it is really interesting to teach young learners of English how beautiful the English language is and how prolific it has being through history. For that reason, I have developed several exercises I have found interesting to put into practice.



Global goal: Teaching drama
Topic: Literature about the curriculum; Shakespearean drama.
Level: 1st ESO

LEARNING OUTCOMES

What I want my students ....
To know:

•  What is drama?
• What makes drama different from poetry and prose? Dialogues, stage directions, no stanzas, no lines.
• Characteristics of Shakespearean Drama: writen like poetry, dialogues, stage directions, stylistic features (metaphores, metonimy, semantic fields...)
• When was Macbeth written?, which culture does it represents?

To be able to:

• Recognize a piece of drama from prose or poetry.
• Know about the historical background.
• Recognize themes and stylistic features

To be aware of:

•  How Shakespearean drama works: key features and recurrent themes.
• Rhythm
• Character’s motivations
• Possible underlying meanings

TECHING OBJECTIVES

Content
By teaching Macbeth to my students, I want to introduce several topics:

• Writer
• Historical Background
• Literature: prose, poetry, drama

• Drama Features:
• Shakespearean drama: features.
• Themes: fate, guilt, revenge, ambition.
• Stylistic devices: metaphor, metonymy, alliteration, rhythm, semantic fields...

Cognition
Once we have read the text, I want them to think about what they have read.

•  Make a short summary
• What do you think about the character’s motivations /acts?> give reasons.
• Question time:

1. What did Lady Macbeth do when her husband came back to the bedroom?
2. Why do you think the three witches revealed Macbeth’s future? What were their possible motivations?
3. What happens to Lady Macbeth in Act V?
4. What do you think Macbeth’s future will be now, taking into account the recurrent theme of Revenge in Shakespeare’s drama?

Culture

•  Revenge in different cultures.
• Parallelisms of Macbeth’s characters with other characters, from Shakespeare or other writer.

Communication (language)

•  Describe what it’s happening
• Defining the character’s motivations
• Why do they act like they do?
• Express your opinion about the characters’ motivations
• Compare and Contrast Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo.
• How do you think the play will end?

Content Vocabulary
Structures
Functions
Language Support
- Differences
- Present
- State things.
- Through background
between Shakespearean language and modern English.
- Adjectives
- Nouns
- Semantic field of blood, revenge...
simple
- Imperative
- Conditionals
- Comparatives
- Hypothesis.
- Establishing comparisons.
- Making future predictions
information
- Videos
- Comics
- Activities
- Rewrite the text.