It is one of a series of lesson plans to accompany the short animated videos of six of Shakespeare's plays on LearnEnglish Kids.
Introduction
In this lesson plan, which can be delivered as a 100 minute lesson or as shorter segments over three lessons, learners will be introduced to the Shakespeare play Macbeth through a short animated video. They will watch the video and complete comprehension activities, and then will be guided to think about and discuss the idea of 'ambition' from the play. Finally learners will develop their writing skills by thinking and writing about what job they would like to have when they grow up.
Learning outcomes
- Use strategies for watching and understanding a short video based on the Shakespeare play Macbeth.
- Practise comprehension and speaking skills by discussing ideas from the play.
- Practise writing skills through a personalised writing activity based on an element from the play.
Age/ Level
Aged 9–12 years (CEFR B1)
Time
105 minutes. This can be done over three lessons
Materials
- Lesson plan
- The Macbeth video, worksheet (Print an Activity), and other materials can be accessed here: https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/short-stories/macbeth
Part one (35 minutes)
- Warmer (5 minutes)
- Ask your learners to imagine they could be the king/queen or president of their country. Would they like to be? Why? /Why not?
- Prediction (10 minutes)
- Tell the learners that they are going to watch a video called Macbeth, which is a story about a man who decides he wants to be king.
- Give learners the video worksheet and ask them to match the words and pictures (exercise 1). Check answers as a class.
- Ask learners to make some predictions about the video based on the words.
- While watching (10 minutes)
- Play the video and ask learners to match the characters and their names as they watch (exercise 2).
- Ask them to compare their answers in pairs and then check as a class.
- Post watching (10 minutes)
- Put learners into pairs
- Now ask learners to try to order the sentences (exercise 3). Tell them it doesn’t matter if they can’t remember everything because they will watch the video again.
- Play the video again and learners check their answers to exercise 3.
- Ask them to compare answers with their partner, then go through as a class.
- At this stage, you might like to ask learners additional questions to help clarify their understanding, or ask them to say which of their earlier predictions were correct.
- Ask learners if they liked the story and why. Did they think it was funny, interesting, happy/sad, etc.?
Note: If your learners need more support understanding the video, you might like to adapt the transcript of the video and get learners to act it out.
Part two (30 minutes)
- Discuss ideas from the play (10 mins)
- One of the ideas in Macbeth is ‘ambition’. The depth to which you discuss the ideas and questions in this stage will depend on your learners’ age and maturity, and you may need to provide more or less support.
- Ask your learners some guiding questions about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
- Who first gives Macbeth the idea to become king? (the witches)
- At first, who is more ambitious about the idea, Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? (Lady Macbeth)
- Who encourages Macbeth to become king by killing King Duncan? (Lady Macbeth)
- However, who then decides to kill Banquo because he knows the secret? (Macbeth)
- Do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel bad about what they have done to achieve their ambition? (Both feel guilty)
- Pyramid discussion (20 minutes)
- Ask your learners if they think Macbeth should have listened to the witches or if he should have ignored them and made his own decisions. Do they think it’s fair that the witches trick him at the end, and he dies?
- Give or elicit some discussion language for learners to write in their notebooks. E.g
Giving opinions
In my opinion …
I think …
I believe..
Asking for opinions
What do you think about…?
Asking for clarification
Can you explain why you think …?
Do you mean…?
What do you mean?
Agreeing
I agree
I think so too
I couldn’t agree more (Note: learners sometimes think this is used for disagreeing)
Disagreeing
I disagree
I don’t think so - Learners discuss the questions in pairs
- Join two pairs to make a group. They share their opinions.
- Finally groups share their opinions in a whole class discussion.
Part three (40 minutes)
- Brainstorming (5 minutes)
- Ask your learners to tell you what job they would like to have when they grow up, Ask why they would like to have this job. Brainstorm some ideas on the board.
- Developing ideas (10 minutes)
- Put learners into pairs.
- They tell their partner about the job they’d like to do. Including what they think it involves, why they would like to do it or the qualities they think you need to do it.
- They could also try to think of one thing they could do to help achieve their ambition
- Elicit a few examples: they want to be a teacher, they could practise teaching their little brother or sister; or zookeeper they could watch documentaries to learn about some wild animals.
- Writing (15 minutes)
- Ask learners to write about this job in their notebook, including all the information they shared with their partner.
- Encourage learners to self-check their writing.
- Monitor and support with language.
- Giving feedback (10 minutes)
- When learners have finished, allocate a new partner.
- They swap their notebook with their partner.
- They read their partner’s text and say if they would enjoy doing that job and why or why not.
Note: If you’ve trained your learners how to peer correct, you could ask them to check their partner’s language after commenting on the content.
- Other useful resources
- Extend your learners’ work with Macbeth: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/shakespeare-extension-activities-kids
- BBC KS2 English activities (Macbeth): https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/articles/zkxcbdm
- Ideas about using Shakespeare’s plots: https://primaryenglished.co.uk/blog/teaching-shakespeare-in-primary-schools
Downloads
Lesson plan169.2 KB
Language Level