Thoughts on teaching Chaucer

The Edsitement lesson plan is very comprehensive and if I were to teach the wife of Bath I would certainly use it as a starting point.

I think it is important to understand how to read Middle English with the correct pronunciation before delving into the text. I studied the prologue for A level and I cannot remember discussing pronunciation although we did read the text aloud as a class as best we could. The information online teaching you to talk in Middle English is useful but I would condense it into one worksheet, this would make it easier to refer to and use as an aid when reading the text. It may also be fun to record pupils reading the text, this way any stumbling or pausing could be edited out.

A useful starter for looking at pronunciation would be to play Bill Bailey’s Pub Joke in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer to the class and ask them to identify why it sounds strange? And what is different about the language he uses? The pupils should pick up on the stressed ‘e’ sound at the end of words, language used that is less common now, inflexions now absent form speech like ‘eth’, and more. You can have a look at it on you tube with this address https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWi7p9xj83I

Spending time looking at the portrait of the Wife of Bath in the General Prologue is really important. The idea that the Wife of Bath is a character common in much literature could be expanded on by asking pupils to find a character on television or in film that they feel is like the Wife of Bath. Pupils could bring in images of the characters and these could be used to make a class collage. Each pupil making a case for why their character is like the Wife of Bath and the class voting on whether to include the image on the final collage.

The views of the Wife of Bath are really interesting and I think it is vital to put these in a context. I like the activity that asks pupils to think about whether the Wife of Bath would be a suitable bride for The Goodman of Paris. Splitting the text up and asking pupils to summarise their section to the class is an excellent way of breaking up a text into manageable pieces. It also tests pupils understanding of what they have read because they must be able to summarise their section. For lower ability pupils they could be given a summary and asked to put it into their own words. The worksheet that compares the Wife of Bath’s views to the church could be used as the basis for a debate. The pupils could be divided into two groups one representing the views of the Wife of Bath and the other representing the views of the church.

I've just watched that youtube clip. It's hilarious! I love Bill Bailey! That would definitely be something to interest 'A' level students.

Forgot to say, I like the collage idea too!