Post on 19-Oct-2020
62
The Phantom of the Opera: developing reading strategies in class
The project entitled The Phantom of the Opera: developing reading strategies
in class was developed in a group from the third year of high school at a federal school
located in Rio Grande do Sul. The project was a requirement for Estágio de Docência
em Língua Inglesa II and it lasted for twenty hours, totalizing two and a half months of
teaching practice. The class was composed by 28 students between 16 and 18 years
old.
Working with literature in English classes is a challenge for students and
teachers since reading long texts is usually not part of the syllabus in public schools.
Considering that developing reading skills was one of the objectives of the term and
after getting to know the students’ interest in fantasy and horror stories, we proposed
a project based on the graded reader (Stage 1) of The Phantom of the Opera1 (original
novel written by Gaston Leroux in 1910). The aim of this article is to present our
lesson plan and explain the tasks we designed to guide the students and engage them
in reading the book in class.
The graded reader has twenty-four pages and is divided in ten chapters. In
order to organize the class activities and make sure that the students would finish the
book, we designed reading tasks for each chapter. For the final production, the
students would write a comment about some aspects of The Phantom of the Opera or
relate the story to their lives, using conditional sentences, the linguistic structure
focused in the project.
1 BASSETT, Jennifer (Ed.). The Oxford Bookworms Library: Stage 1: The Phantom of the Opera.
Oxford: Oxford Bookworms ELT, 2007.
63
The classes
The first class was dedicated to introducing the project. To do so, we asked the
students whether they believed in ghosts and if they knew any ghost stories. Some of
them answered affirmatively and shared their beliefs with the classmates. Others
explained why they did not believe in such supernatural creatures. Most of the
students did not know anything about The Phantom of the Opera, and, for this reason,
we showed them a teaser of the book with some key information about the novel.
Their task was to make notes while watching the video in order to get input for a
preliminary discussion about the theme of the novel. The conversation started with
their impressions and inferences based on the teaser, and, after that, we browsed
Broadway’s website to find more details about the play. Finally, the students watched
the teaser of the musical. The objective of this overview was to show that, by having
been repeatedly published and broadcasted in different genres over many years, The
Phantom of the Opera had become a classic.
The next step was a task to explore the students’ expectations in relation to the
plot. In small groups, the students were given a set of images that illustrate the graded
reader. The objective was to order the images in such a way that the story would make
sense. After some time, each group presented their hypotheses to the class and
exchanged ideas regarding their interpretation of the images and their inferences
about the plot.
64
Figure 1 – Building expectations about the plot of the story based on the images of the
book (BASSET, 2007)
The final step of the first class was reading the introduction to the story – the
description of the setting (the Opera House) and the main character (the Phantom). In
order to make the students feel comfortable in their first contact with the text, we
designed a task that combined reading and drawing abilities: the students were asked
to draw the Opera House and the Phantom based on what they read. After presenting
the drawings to their classmates, the whole group elected the Opera House and the
Phantom that most matched the descriptions. These drawings were placed in the
65
beginning of a timeline that we created throughout the classes in order to keep track
of the plot as the students read each chapter.
We designed two tasks for chapter one, which was read in the second class. In
the first one, we cut some parts of the text and put them in a separate box. The
students were asked to fill in the blanks with the excerpts.
66
Figure 2 – Filling the blanks with parts of the text (chapter 1)
After that, in small groups, the students were asked to order paragraphs. This
task was a step further concerning reading comprehension since the students had to
understand the text in order to organize the paragraphs in a reasonable way.
Figure 3 – Ordering paragraphs (chapter 1)
We started the third class with a conversation to recollect which characters
were mentioned in chapter one, checking the students' comprehension before
67
beginning the second chapter. Afterwards, the next two tasks focused on listening.
Using a dialogue in chapter two, we planned a task in which the students listened to a
part of the story (audio of the book) and ordered the sentences accordingly.
Figure 4 – Listening and ordering a dialogue (chapter 2)
In the second task students were asked to choose, among three different
options (we made up two of the alternatives), the letter they considered more
appropriate in the story. After choosing the one that they considered adequate to the
plot, we played the audio of the book for the students to check their answers.
68
Figure 5 – Listening and choosing the correct letter (chapter 2)
To finish chapter two, the students were asked to read the text in order to
prepare for a game. In two teams, the students had to answer a quiz (10 questions)
about what they had read. All the questions had four options and only one correct
answer.
69
Figure 6 – Quiz game (chapter 2)
The fourth class focused on chapter three. In pairs, the students read the text
matching each paragraph with an image that illustrated it2. The students had to
understand what was happening in the plot and interpret each image in order to
answer appropriately.
2 The images were taken from operaghost.ru/comic_inn.htm
70
Figure 7 – Matching paragraphs to images: images (chapter 3)
71
Figure 8 – Matching paragraphs to images: text (chapter 3)
72
At this point of the project we realized that we would not have time enough to
cover all the book with tasks for each chapter. Consequently, we changed our planning
and designed a task for the next chapters in such a way that we could conclude the
story in class.
Having said that, the fifth class was used to prepare the students for this
activity. After organizing the class in small groups and assigning a chapter to each one
of them, we gave time for the students to read their corresponding chapters and share
ideas about what they had read, in order to prepare a presentation to their classmates
in a way that they all could understand the plot. We stimulated the groups to use their
imagination to decide on how to present the chapters, which proved to be a
productive idea considering that some groups performed plays, others recited excerpts
from the book or explained the plot in their own words. Although this task was not
planned in the beginning of the project, the results were excellent since the students
managed to read and understand the assigned chapter and were able to tell the story
to their classmates in different ways. So the sixth class (when they presented the
chapters) had a very pleasant atmosphere because everyone was participating,
contributing to the whole group’s understanding of the story in a very dynamic way.
Since students sometimes get distracted in presentations, we planned a task
for them to concentrate and give feedback to the other groups. Students were asked
to write down comments about their classmates’ presentations considering:
a) what they could understand from the presentation;
b) good aspects of the presentation;
c) what the group could improve in their work and performance;
d) questions for the group.
This exercise was interesting to check the students' comprehension and
engagement. Based on their participation and comments, most of the students
73
seemed to have enjoyed the activity. Most of the comments highlighted positive points
of the presentations and also suggested some improvements.
The following class was focused on recollecting the plot and making
hypotheses. In order to do that, we planned a conversation in which the groups could
talk about their chapters and everybody could make questions about aspects of the
story that had not been clarified in the previous class. Based on what students brought
up, we completed the timeline that we had started in the first class, ordering
important moments of the story and systematizing the plot. After having done that, it
was time to introduce the final production, which was writing some hypotheses based
on The Phantom of the Opera having in mind one of these aspects:
a) If I were the Phantom of the Opera, I would…
b) If I were the Phantom of the school, I would…
c) If I were Christine Daaé, I would…
d) If I were the author of the book, I would...
With these options, the students could put themselves in the Phantom’s shoes
either thinking about the plot or about their own reality in school. Also, they had the
opportunity to say what they would do if they were Christine Daaé - one of the main
characters - or what they would change in the plot if they were the author of the book.
In order to prepare the students for the task, we explained how to make
hypotheses in English, and gave them a handout with examples. The next step was to
practice the structure with a number of sentences. While students did the exercise
individually, we walked around the classroom and solved doubts.
Continuing the work with conditionals, in the eighth class, we proposed an oral
practice. This task had the objective of systematizing the previous class and preparing
the students to finally write their hypotheses to share them with their classmates.
Seated in a circle, the students had to form sentences using the information that
74
appeared on a Power Point presentation. We brought a small ball to class, and each
student would throw it to the next player.
Figure 9 – Practicing conditionals
This task was interesting to bring up questions about conditionals and clarify
doubts they still had. Besides, the students had fun trying to make up sentences, and
this was an opportunity for them to help each other. Having done that, they were
ready to start writing the first draft of their hypotheses. The feedback notes to the
students focused on their creativity, the use of conditionals and ideas to improve their
75
texts. In the ninth class, the students received their texts back and produced their final
version. Then they shared their hypotheses with their classmates.
To conclude the project, in the tenth class the students were asked to fill out an
evaluation in order to reflect on their self-development and learning. Also, they could
suggest improvements for future developments of the project.
76
Figure 10 – Final evaluation of the project
Since the students were curious about the musical of The Phantom of the
Opera, we watched the movie in class to wrap-up the project. While watching the
movie they were able to establish connections with their reading and compare both
genres.
The project The Phantom of the Opera: developing reading strategies in class
proved that it is possible to read long texts in English classes, even with basic groups. It
is crucial to pay attention to the students’ profile: the reading must be relevant in
order to motivate them. Also, the reading of a text demands lesson planning, the tasks
developed in class must match the reading purpose of the genre in order to guide
students throughout the reading and have them develop reading strategies. Moreover,
planning reading classes and designing tasks demand an awareness of the fact that
reading is not only decoding sentences but using what was read to do something: to
discuss, to act out, to comment, to share ideas. We consider that this project was
successful because the students not only read a book in English, improved their
reading skills and learned about English literature, but also actively participated in class
making questions, thinking about hypotheses, explaining the plot to their classmates
and giving opinions about the book.