E.L.I.O.T._2nd group_ Learning Units 14 SCHOOL PARTNERS | Page 49
E.L.I.O.T. - ENHANCING LITERACY BASIC SKILLS AND FIGHTING DROPOUT WITH
CROSS-CURRICULAR THEATRICAL EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
ID Number: 2016-1-IT02-KA219-024165
literal, or normal, everyday, meaning.
The teacher elicit from students a few examples of metaphors,
similes, or idioms/sayings in their mother tongue and explains that these
language devices exist also in other languages.
The teacher tells students that today’s lesson will be ”A PIECE OF
CAKE”!
Development (40 minutes)
The teacher writes the phrase “a piece of cake” on the whiteboard
and ask students to guess the meaning of "a piece of cake".
The teacher displays a picture of a piece of cake on the whiteboard
and asks students to describe the experience of eating a piece of cake.
The teacher guides students toward answers such as enjoyable, easy,
fun, delicious, etc. The teacher records answers on the board.
The teacher helps students eliciting that when someone describes
something as being "a piece of cake," they mean that it is easy.
The teacher tells students that "a piece of cake" is an example of
an idiom. Define an ”idiom” as a saying that has a meaning that's different
than the literal meaning of the phrase.
The teacher shows the students a video called “Confessions of an
idiom” and explains that they are going to watch and listen to a video
based on an extensive, humorous and ironic usage of idioms.
(https://vimeo.com/63083013)
Students are asked to predict what is going to happen knowing that
the protagonists are an enormous elephant in a room (idiom) and a
skeleton in the closet (idiom). (1st listening)
The teacher elicit from students the general gist of the video and
check whether their predictions were true or false
(in pairs) (filling the gap) The teacher hands out the students a
worksheet featuring the 13 idioms mentioned in the video and ask them to
fill in the gaps. Students are also requested to infer and write down what
they think the meaning of the idioms is from the context.
The teacher connects to the website
https://en.islcollective.com/video-lessons/confessions-idiomlistening and
check with the students the gaps filled. On the website the meaning of
every single idiom is explained. The teacher discusses with the students
whether in their opinion there’s a connection between the literal and the
figurative meaning of the idioms analyzed.
The teacher elicits from the students the fact that often idioms are
culturally bound and invites the students to identify the foreign cultural
elements in the video.
The teacher asks the students (in pairs) to write down the
equivalent in Italian of the idioms analysed (if any) and whether some