After looking at the song, the poem, and the weather charts for Manchester, we became more aware of the extremities of weather by month in the UK. By comparing the charts to the song and the poem, we got an insight on a few different opinions of these extremities (although sometimes a bit over exaggerated) and thought of some interesting ways to incorporate weather in a possible lesson plan.
Our lesson plan is designed around intermediate-advanced students. We would start by having the students connect to their home country by picking a month (probably the month that the lesson is being taught in) and ask them to describe the weather in their home town, using some adjectives. This could be shared in the whole class or in small groups based on the seating arrangement.
After they have had a little time to reflect and connect to the topic, we present new vocabulary. The words we thought of using would all be adjectives and would also connect to weather, such as “dank,” “humid,” “muggy,” etc. We would also supply our students with charts or pictures of weather (depending on the level of the learners). For lower level we could have pictures of weather and ask them to come up with as many adjectives and other connections as they can to that picture. If we used charts the students would have to be aware of Celsius or Fahrenheit, and be more aware of the symbols used on weather charts. If we were to apply the song or the poem, we would need to make them aware of the artistic element of the writing, seeing as they incorporate the adjectives differently (using “filthy” to describe weather can confuse even native speakers of English).
At the end of the lesson, we think it’s a good idea to bring back the home country aspect using the new vocab to help them connect it to something personal. They can use their new vocabulary to describe each month, and depending on their level of creativity, they can come up with a way to describe each month in a song/poem/story format instead of a list. They then get together in small groups and present their ideas to their classmates, and lastly, it’s all brought together in the class as a whole.
Sara, Ben, Willow, Brieanna
I really like your idea that students could conclude the lesson by creating their own weather poem. The model is simple and useful in this regard, I think: twelve lines, one line for each month and therefore just one or two key words for each month. Weather vocabulary is very rich, as you note, and there is a nice link with science and math by having students interpret or report numbers and match language with pictures.