Theme: child prodigies, education, home schooling
Lexical area: school subjects, university

Instructions for language assistants in Italics.

Classroom materials

Introduction
This lesson offers a variety of activities based on child maths prodigies. Task 1 is a warm up activity that revises names of school subjects and introduces the topic of education. In task 2 students prepare questions to ask the teacher about his/ her education and life. In task 3 students read about and compare two maths prodigies; Arran, who has recently been offered a place at Cambridge at the age of 14 and Ruth, who went to Oxford at age 13 in the 1980s. In task 4 students complete time lines for the maths prodigies to check their comprehension of the text. In task 5 students make time lines for the teacher and then for themselves. Task 6 is more suitable for higher levels. It asks learners to read comments about Arran on a university website and then to give their opinions on these comments.

1. School subjects - anagrams
Ask students to make school subjects from the anagrams. Early finishers can invent more anagrams for their classmates to sort. Ask your students if they have a favourite school subject. Tell them about your favourite subject when you were at school. Mention what you were good and bad at.

Answers:

1 THAMS - MATHS

2 SISCPYH - PHYSICS

3 TRYMISECH - CHEMISTRY

4 GOLYIBO - BIOLOGY

Task 1 School subjects - anagrams

With a partner, sort the letters to make school subjects:

1 THAMS _______________________ 3 TRYMISECH ___________________

2 SISCPYH ______________________ 4 GOLYIBO ______________________

Make some more anagrams of school subjects for another pair to sort:

_______________________________ _________________________________

_______________________________ _________________________________

2. Education and ages
A) Ask students to match each education stage or activity with an approximate age. The ages will vary from country to country. Ask if they know of any examples of people doing these things at unusual ages or being educated in a different way, e.g., homeschooling. Write ‘GCSE’ and ‘A- Levels’ on the board. Ask at what age these school exams are usually taken (at 16 and 18) in Britain. Ask if there are equivalent exams in the host country.

B) With a lower level class elicit questions for students to ask you about your education and write them on the board - then have students ask you the questions. With higher levels encourage students to ask you questions and tell them about your experiences of education. Add other details, e.g., your gap year, if appropriate.You could ask what they know about university entrance procedure in their country and compare it with your experience in Britian.

Task 2 Education and ages

A) With a partner decide what age most people do these things:

Go to nursery school ___________________________

Go to primary school ____________________________

Do homework __________________________________

Go to secondary school __________________________

Do official school exams _________________________

Go to university ________________________________

B) Ask your teacher questions about his/her education.

1 When did you go to nursery school?

2 When did……………………………………………………………………………………?

3………………………………………………………………………………………………..?

4………………………………………………………………………………………………..?

5………………………………………………………………………………………………..?

6………………………………………………………………………………………………..?

3. Reading: Maths prodigies
Ask students to read and explain the title. Do they know any stories about maths prodigies? Tell students that they are going to quickly read about Arran and Ruth and find three things that they have in common (both accepted at university when very young, both home schooled, both like maths). Set a time limit of 5 minutes. Tell students that they will read the texts in more detail later.

Task 3 Reading: Maths prodigies

Read about Arran and Ruth. Find three things that they have in common.

4. Time lines
Explain that the arrows represents time. The arrows start in the past and continue into the future. Do numbers 1 and 2 for Arran as a class to help students get started. Then students work in pairs to complete the time lines.

Answers:

Arran

1 - 1996 (working backwards from 2001, when he was five)

2 - 5

3 – 2003

4 – 14

5 - find a solution to the Riemann hypothesis

Ruth

1 – 8

2 – 1981

3 – 13

4 – 19

5 – 1996

6 – 1997

7 - grow up ‘normally’.

Task 4 Time lines
Read the texts in more detail and complete the time lines for Arran and Ruth with numbers or words.

5. Make a time line.
A) Draw an arrow on the board to represent your time line. Ask your students what they can remember about your education (from task 3) and together build up your time line. Keep it simple for lower levels, e.g., 4 or 5 sentences with ages or dates and give lots of help with past tense verbs. For higher levels include more complex language and your ambitions (invented if necessary). Include some none education events in your timeline too.

B) Have students write their own time lines in the box. You could make a list on the board of life events to include, e.g., when you were born,when siblings were born, when you got a pet, holidays, visiting famous places, sports events, starting nursery school/ primary school/ secondary school, meeting your best friend. They can invent if they want to. Put students in groups to compare how similar/ different their time lines are. Have a few students tell the class about any of these similarities or differences that they found in their group.

You could expand this for classroom display by getting students to bring in photos or cut out pictures to illustrate their time lines and make into mini posters.

Task 5 Make a time line.
A) What can you remember about your teacher’s education and life? Make a time line for your teacher on the board.

B) Now make a time line for you in the box.

My time line.

6. What the students say.
A) This task is suitable for higher levels or students who want more of a challenge.

Tell the class that they are going to read some comments from a website for Cambridge University students. Remind them that this is the university that has accepted Arran.

Before they read, ask your learners what kind of things existing students might say about a 14-year –old joining the university. Write ideas on the board. Ask them to then read the comments quickly to see if their ideas were correct. Students can then read in more detail (using the glossary if necessary) and circle the appropriate option in the ‘your opinion’ column. Put students in pairs to compare and explain their opinions. You could ask two or three students to share their opinions with the class.

B) To finish off, students can invent more comments to add to the web site then swap papers with a partner, read the new comment/s and complete the ‘your opinion’ column.

NB If you are doing this lesson after Arran becomes a university student ( Autmumn 2010), you could ask your learners to quickly read the comments and say if they were written before or after Arran started university (answer = before) as a lead in.

Task 6 What the students say.
A) Read these comments from the Cambridge students’ online magazine and read what the writers think about Arran joining their university at age 14. Look at the glossary to help you.

Do you agree or disagree with the writers? Or maybe you’re not sure. Circle an option in the ‘your opinion’ column. Compare and explain your opinions with a partner.

B) Imagine you are a Cambridge University student. Add a comment to the website.

Glossary

Bunch = group

Fitz = Fitzwilliam college. Cambridge University is divided into colleges, each with a different name.

Sorted = a problem solved

Subsides = is reduced

Thrills = exciting events

Uni = university

Online magazine comments your opinion

Internet links.
Read more about Arran and see a photo of him here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/07/cambridge-university-14-arran-fernandez

Look at a real Cambridge University student website (but maybe not in class) here:
http://cambridgetab.co.uk/

Read about home schooling here:
http://www.home-schooling-uk.com/

Find out more about Ruth Lawrence here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Lawrence

Read about the Riemann hypothesis here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis

By Sally Trowbridge

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