Feelings

Title: Phobias

Natalya Dementyeva
School 27 ,Aktobe, Kazakhstan
E-mail: natalyadem@yahoo.co.uk

Language level of students: upper-intermediate
Age group: young adults, adults
Time: 30 – 40 minutes
Skills / aspects focus: speaking, writing, vocabulary
Vocabulary: compounds of Greek origin
Resources and materials: Handouts: phobias, small sheets of paper to write e-mail messages on (alternatively empty compose and reply forms printed from the e-mail), questions for discussion, 3 sets of number cards equivalent to the number of students who are present at the lesson, pictures of things that cause fear.
Credit published materials: the idea of e-mail message writing is adapted from Try it, it works! edited by A. Lawrie 1999, SATEFL

PROCEDURE

Pre-activity

1. Ask SS to brainstorm things that can cause phobias. Stick the pictures on the board to assist brainstorming.
2. Tell SS that they are going to listen to the beginning of a story about a mysterious room 101, and answer the question what they think was in that room. Read the story. SS tell their variants:
   Story beginning:
   ‘You asked me once’, said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101… the thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world… The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal
   End:
   In your case’, said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be rats’.

Activity

1. Distribute handouts for the matching exercise. SS work in groups of 3 – 4 and match fears and phobias.
   HYPNOPHOBIA - fear of sleep
   GERAPHOBIA - fear of old age
   ARACHNOPHOBIA - fear of spiders
   OPHTALMOPHOBIA - fear of eyes
   XENOPHOBIA - fear of foreigners
   TOXIPHOBIA - fear of poison
   HYDROPHOBIA - fear of water
   PHOTOPHOBIA - fear of light
   BELONEPHOBIA - fear of needles
   CLAUSTROPHOBIA - fear of closed space
   AGORAPHOBIA - fear of people
   AEROPHOBIA - fear of flying
2. Distribute handouts with the questions for discussion. SS work in pairs.
3. Introduce the activity e-mail messaging, give out little sheets of paper or the samples of the compose form and invite SS to write a short message about their fears and ask for help or advice. SS write. Sticks ready messages to the board and gives numbers.
4. Introduce the message replying activity, gives little sheets of paper or samples of the reply form, emphasising the importance of putting the address and subject in the form.  SS draw lots in order to find out whose messages they are going to reply, read the messages and reply. Ask SS to stick their replies under the corresponding messages.

Post-Activity

Ask SS to collect their original messages and the replies to these messages. SS write an account of their phobia, the suggestions that they got and their comments on the effectiveness of these suggestions at home

Downloads:

• Phobias-1 and Phobias-2 (matching task)
• Questions for Discussion.

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