tsu english 9 hri

ENGLISH

TEACHER SUPPORT UNIT 9

ANXIETIES AND FEARS

English Teacher Support Unit 9

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Teacher Support Unit 9

Theme

ANXIETIES AND FEARS

BEFORE WE START...

The Ninth TSU

This TSU deals with a theme that the students may not exactly ‘like’, but it concerns them intensely –

Anxieties and Fears.

Teenagers face an increasing number of anxieties and fears in the course of growing up. Many of them

have to deal with situations like, a lack of friends, fear of being bullied, fear of the teacher, a quarrel with a

‘best’ friend, anxieties about academic performance, etc. At this stage, they begin to get anxious about

their future. Problems such as, leaving school, going to work, need to support their family, going to

college, career, relocation to another town or city for higher studies, lack of money for funding

education, etc. are now becoming more real. The fact that they have to become more responsible for

their actions will also start sinking in.

Some anxieties may be reasonable and others, not so. As a teacher, if y ou can understand and empathize

with what is happening in your student’s life – for e.g., if her father, the lone bread -winner for the family,

suffers from a major illness – you may be able to appreciate the student’s conduct and academic

performance from a different perspective and help her deal with her fears and anxieties better. In this

process, you would help her learn better too.

What’s more, anxieties and fears have the potential to bring out deeper expressions from the students

than ‘feel good’ themes. All it requires is an empathetic listener – you!

The starting point

If you have completed the eighth TSU, we can assume that our students are now able to:


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· Listen to and understand talks, speeches, views and commentary on TV

· Read the newspaper and understand basic information from reports

· Take part in conversations, discussions and debates

· Express views and opinions, in oral and written forms

· Convert one language form into another, e.g. converting information from tables to text

· Predict outcomes (i.e. ‘if ’ questions)

· – with attention to punctuation, period, comma

· Read a text carefully – identifying meanings of words from their context

· Select better ones from given summaries

· Organize ideas

Do you agree with the statements given above? Are your students able to do much more than this? Or

less than this? How will you align the suggestions here with the level at which your students are?

At the end of the ninth TSU, your students would be able to:

· Read interesting reading material like stories and novels with eagerness

· Take notes on books and articles, and summarize information

· Refer to materials and collect useful information

· Read written instructions

· Discuss the actions of the characters, developing and expressing opinions on the appropriateness

of their actions

· Appreciate prose and poetry, being able to say whether a piece was liked or not, and why

· Write down their thoughts and feelings

So do go through the ninth TSU and let us know how well your students responded.


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Did it work?

Everyone has his or her own share of fears and anxieties. However, if you are in a certain profession, you

should not have certain anxieties or fears. For example, a mountain climber should not have fear of

heights. Shall we map particular fears and an ?

Activity 5: Ask your students what fears one should not have if one were a pilot? Give them a few seconds to think and

appreciate the ones who answer. If there is no response, ask a question like, 'What fears should a pilot of an

airplane

of landing…)

Now, what kinds of fears should people ente ring the following professions not have?

Doctor (surgeon in particular)

Car driver

Sailor (ship captain)

Fisherman

Fireman

Policeman / Policewoman

Lawyer

Farmer

School teacher

What is the focus of this activity?...................................................

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Did it work?






airplane

of landing…)



Car driver


Fisherman

Fireman


Lawyer

Farmer

School teacher


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Somniphobia – fear of falling asleep

Ablutophobia- fear of washing or bathing!

Selenophobia – fear of the moon

Now, ask them to form groups and discuss unusual fears.. Each group should come up with at least 4 ‘unusual’

fears. You could get the rest of the class to decide if the fear mentioned by a group is really ‘unusual’. (If required,

you could talk about fears of cats, buses, trains, cycles, snakes, milk, colours, darkness, wind, rain, etc). Make sure

the students write their responses in their notebooks.

Did it work?

The students may have a number of home-based anxieties and worries. These may pertain to parents’

income, illnesses of family members, lack of facilities at home, etc. The next activity is related to fears of

this nature.

Activity 3: Home Ask the students what kinds of worries and anxieties related to home and family they REALLY have. These could

be like:

· Of being scolded / beaten for NOT doing something – ask them for examples

· Of being scolded / beaten for doing something – ask then for examples

· Of being alone at home


Did you make

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· Of strangers entering the house

· Of there not being enough food to eat, for all

· Of father / mother / sister / brother falling ill

· Of an elder sister getting married and leaving home

· Of being pushed to do odd-jobs to help parents

· Of breaking an expensive object

· O

· Of elder brother / sister doing very well in academics, thus increasing pressure to perform on the student

· Of relocation to another city

You might want to write down what the students say on the board. If there are not enough responses, prompt

them, based on the suggestions given above.

Now, ask each student to write down the top most anxiety that he or she has, among all those listed, providing

details in two or three sentences. If there is a reason for the anxiety – based on some incident, perhaps – they

should be encouraged to narrate it in a few sentences.

Ask a few students to share what they have written with the class. If they speak in Hindi, don’t forget to translate

what they said into English.

Did it work?

All of us have anxieties and fears. However, there i two.


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Anxiety is a rather vague sense of apprehension. It is often a response to an unknown threat. For

example, if you are walking in a street in complete darkness, you may feel a little uneasy. The sensation is

related to the possibility that a stranger may jump out from behind, or approach you in some other way,

and harm you.

Fear is an emotional response to a known threat. Using the scenario above, let’s say you’re walking down

a dark street and someone points a knife at you and says, 'Give me your purse,' The danger is real,

Extreme fear is called panic.

Activity 4: Is this anxiety or fear? Once you explain the difference between anxiety and fear, you could take them through these sentences and ask

them to say if it is anxiety or fear that is involved. Read the sentences slowly, clearly. (

then say it in Hindi, if necessary).

· Looking at the clouds, Ram thought i t might rain and he would get wet.

· Ahmed shrieked when he saw a scorpion on the bench.

· Raju saw the bull running towards him.

· Sohail put the glass on the table carefully.

· Manav waited for the bus and kept looking at his watch.

· Nirupama was sitting on the tree branch. When she looked down, she saw a tiger.

· The manager asked Bahadur to come for an interview next Monday morning at 10’o clock.

You may ask the students to prepare a chart of the list given above and display it in a prominent place in the

school. At the beginning of the chart, explain anxiety and -3 sentences. Then ask anyone who

attempts to answer and wants to know if he/she is right, to contact a student of your class.

Now that we know the difference between anxiety and fear, would you like to revisit the earlier

activities to check if we used the right term - fear or anxiety – at the right place?


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Did it work?






airplane

of landing…)



Car driver


Fisherman

Fireman


Lawyer

Farmer

School teacher


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Plumber

Carpenter

Cook

You could organize this into a group activity. F orm groups with 3-4 members each and ask them to consult each

other and draw up the list of fears that a person entering any profession listed above should not have. The groups

may then read out their lists to the class and come up with a master-list of fe

professions should not have. You may convert these into a few charts and hang them in a prominent place in the

school.

Well, people do overcome their fears. Some deliberately face situations that make them afraid in order to

overcome their fears. (For example, if you suffer from fear of heights, you could go to the terrace of a tall

building or a hillock and looking down (carefully, of course!). Can we look at an activity that encourages

students to overcome their fears?

Did it work?

Activity 6: How can anxieties and fears be overcome in the following contexts?

Fear of drowning (swimming in shallow waters, learning to swim really well in shallow waters, having company

while swimming so that there is someone to take care of you in an emergency, etc .)


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Fear of being alone at home

Fear of speaking in English

Fear of standing in front of the class and talking or fear of being on stage

Fear of making friends

Fear of asking strangers for help / direction

This too could be a group activity. After forming groups of 3-4 each, you could allocate one particular anxiety or

fear to each group and ask the group to suggest ways to overcome the fear / anxiety. You may choose

from the list above.

If the suggestions are good, they might be displayed on a chart with the title 'Conquer your fear of _____ in 5

easy steps!'

We now move to an activity that is closely connected to fears and anxieties – it is about three

perceptions: Illusion, Delusion and Hallucination. What are these? Let’s take an example.

· Watching a TV show – strongly believing that a TV show is on – when the TV has been switched

off – hallucination (seeing, smelling or hearing things that are not there)

· Watching a TV show believing tha t it is about YOU when it is not – delusion.

· Watching a TV show, mistaking an actor in it for your brother - illusion

Some knowledge of these terms will help them analyze their own anxieties better and with some efforts

overcome them. This would also hel p improve their self-awareness.


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Did it work?

Activity 7: Ask your students if they have heard of these terms – illusion, delusion and hallucination. Then mention the

example given above. Make sure they understand the terms. Now mention the following scenarios and ask them

which of the three terms applies to each situation:

· Hearing a loud noise when there is only silence (hallucination)

·

· Hearing the wind blowing and thinking that birds are chirping (delusion)

· Thinking that an old man who is cycling behind you is a policeman spying on you (illusion)

· A man claiming that he went to the Sun and came back (delusion)

· Believing that a girl / or boy is in love with you, when that is not the case (delusion)

· In the movie 'Munna Bhai MBBS', the hero talk s to Mahatma Gandhi (hallucination)

· From a distance, mistaking a woman who sells vegetables to be your aunt (illusion)

You could now ask the students to form groups of 3-4. Each group should come up with at least one

example each for delusion, illusion and hallucination .

You could get your students to do this interesting activity to help them understand how the brain thinks.

This is an example of illusion. It is called the Aristotle Illusion.

While the

believe? Let’s check it out.


Did you make any

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Did it work?

Activity 8

I feel it in

pencil back and forth along the side of the teeth. Even though the teeth are moving from side to side in a

wave-

This works because the unfamiliar motion of the teeth causes a similar skin deformation to the more usual

Making your brain believe that you have two noses

imes called the po -

matter which hand you use.


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s in the

using your left hand, this wi ll be reversed. You will probably notice a strange sensation, as though you have

two noses. (Don’t you?)

ou haven't already felt the two

noses sensation, you probably

focused on a separate nose.

Which is heavier?

Here's one to try out on your family and friends. Get hold of two cardboard / paper boxes of different

sizes – one small and one at least twice as big - and put a 500 g salt packet in each one. Check that they

weigh the same, close the boxes so that no one knows what is inside and then bring them to the

classroom. (Your students should NOT know what is inside. This is critical to the success of this

experiment).

Get a student to lift the boxes and tell you which the heavier box is. Most students in your class will say

that the smaller box is heavier, even though it isn't .

The exact reason for these illusions remains a mystery.

Now, after doing the experiments, following your ORAL INSTRUCTIONS, can they write down the steps for

doing these experiments in their notebooks and show them to you?

Did it work?


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interesting

In TSU 9

· Which activity did your students like the most?

· Can you think of other interesting activities related to the theme of fears and anxieties? Do write

them down and share them with us.


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tsu english 9 hri

Education