Thanks, Luke Meddings for sharing this pic of a Calvin & Hobbes on Facebook recently.
And, thank you Bill Watterson, for creating these characters!
Here is a quick activity you could do in class, on the general theme of resolutions, but also getting learners to use their imaginations and do a different kind of gap fill =)
Show the class this close up of the first frame
Tell the learners the names of the two characters (the little boy is Calvin, and the tiger is Hobbes, his stuffed toy come to life in Calvin’s imagination). Or not – up to you. Ask learners to speculate as to what they are doing and where they are. They might suggest that they are walking in snow and there are many possible answers they may give about what they are doing.
You might like to teach a little bit of comic book technique and appreciation by drawing attention to the lines coming out near Hobbes’ mouth – the bottom of a speech bubble. Comic book and graphic novel artists use these to show us what the characters are saying. What is Hobbes saying to Calvin??? Set learners off on this task, again, no wrong answers. Review everyone’s suggestions for likelihood of matching the one in the strip, and for language.
Dictation, ooo we loves a bit of dictation, we do. Short and sweet. Read out the following line, ideally once only.
Are you making any resolutions for the new year?
Learners compare what they wrote, ask them to come to the board or dictate it back to you. Review, perhaps including use of Present Progressive to express futurity. Check learners’ knowledge of resolution, new year, etc. Do they have this tradition in their countries???
Then, show this to your learners and ask them to fill in the blanks:
This could be on paper, or on the board with or without the image. You could beam the image onto the board with a data projector and learners then write on the white board their ideas. If you have an interactive whiteboard, they could even write on the image file in Notebook or something like that. Then you could save each learner’s ideas for the dialogue and put them on a blog or something. =) Tidy up any language and dialogue as you wish.
Lastly, learner resolutions and more discussion. Did they have a nice holiday? Did they make any resolutions? Could they make any to do with language learning? You’re bound to have some ideas for this one ;o)
HOPE YOU HAD A FAB HOLIDAY AND ALL THE BEST FOR 2012!!!
~ Mike
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Good comic to choose from, Mike.
Cheers, Tyson. I do love a bit of Calvin and Hobbes. Thanks go to Luke for putting this one up on Facebook. It is definitely one of my faves =)
Mike
Here’s another take on C&H resolutions: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BFmrOqQJl0c/R3t9w8rJq8I/AAAAAAAAADE/-u8VadoJaWY/s400/Resolutions.jpg I really miss Calvin’s take on the world. Luckily I have most of the compilations at home.
Haha! Awesomes! I got the 10 year book one Christmas, then misplaced it (thankfully refound!) and then bought myself 3 of the compilations xD
Mike
Hi Mike,
I love this activity – I wanted to incorporate resolutions as a topic when I start (officially) next week, so I will be using this one!
Thanks so much,
Vicky
Thanks for the comment, Vicky! It was a good day of lessons for me, starting with this one using Outnumbered for resolutions, which helps introduce/teach/check the use of ‘will’ for the future, while the Calvin and Hobbes text introduces the Present Progressive/Continuous with a future meaning.
Hope you have some good lessons!
Mike xD
Hi Mike
I wish I’d read this the day before yesterday!. The lesson I did on New Year’s resolutions would have benefited hugely from the presence of the great Calvin and Hobbes, lovely ideas- Great to meet you last night as well!
Hi Emi,
A pleasure to meet you too! That’s a shame, but I think you could probably still use it, as the Calvin & Hobbes strip here doesn’t really touch on the form of resolutions, but can prompt discussion around the theme. You could also address the fact that a little boy is talking to his stuffed toy tiger xD
Mike
Great idea, Mike. Might just come in handy this week. Happy New Year.
Very welcome, Adam. Planning to use this twice tomorrow, so will see how it goes having already done the activity last week.
Mike
[...] with Calvin & Hobbes Posted on 2 January, 2012 by Simon Thomas Mike J Harrison shares a great cartoon and an interesting activity idea.Share this post:Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postRecommend on FacebookGoogle Buzz-up this [...]