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Delta COURSE

LESSON PLAN AND COMMENTARY

NAME OF TRAINEE:

LSA NUMBER: One

WHICH SKILL OR SYSTEM? Listening

NAME OF ASSIGNMENT:

DATE OF LESSON:

LEVEL OF CLASS: Upper Intermediate

TIME AND DURATION OF LESSON: 2.00-3.00 (1 hour)

EXPECTED NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 10

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF LEARNERS AND THE COURSE:

The students are all of Spanish background and studying general English. Their age ranges from 37-77.

Their level of proficiency is upper intermediate and they all come from a Spanish background. The learners are

all females with the exception of one male. Most of the students expressed that they encounter difficulties when

listening, especially with the issue of recognizing words in spoken context and the speed of the listening

materials provided.

AIM(S) OF LESSON: To be able to Listen for predictions, gist, details and specific information.

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To be able to devise lexis related to crime and punishment in speaking as freer practice.

LESSON FIT:

ASSUMPTIONS:

It is assumed that the students all have a shared background on crime and theft so they can use it as a build-up

for the listening tasks.

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS:

- Some students might not get involved in the prediction stage due to weak imagination ability, and the

solution is to encourage them and pair and repair them to give them a chance to talk to other students and

share more ideas.

- The speakers might not function well (e.g. echo, too loud etc), and the solution is to check them before the

class, and let the students have a proper distance (not too close, not too fare).

- The over head projector might not work, and the solution is to have handouts to use.

- Some students might come late, and the solution is to start the class with a warmer.

- Some students might not be accustomed with listening for gist, may be they don’t have such sub-skill in

their language, and the solution is to provide a good lead in through prediction and explain the meaning of

listening for gist before listening (telling them not to listen for every single word, just focus on the main

idea).

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- The listening material might be fast for students or difficult to understand at the first listening. The solution

is to play the passage more than once, and stop it at some points if necessary.

MATERIALS AND RESOURCES:

- Handouts

- Listening track 3.1

- Powerpoint presentation

- Whiteboard

WORD COUNT OF COMMENTARY: (It should be between 500-750 words)

COMMENTARY:

In my teaching experience in the Middle-East, I found out that most of the students belief in the idea of “We

just want to speak, we learn English only to speak”. Living with this hypothesis decreased their focus on

listening; they just want to talk and talk all the time. Consequently, I meet a lot of students who are very good at

grammar, and they can’t communicate one natural English sentence simply because they didn’t practice

listening. Another reason of students’ weak listening sub-skills is that most of them don’t practice these sub-

skills in their first language, and others do it unconsciously (e.g. listening to the news, listing for gist in the

airport), and they don’t feel comfortable practicing them in a foreign language. Depending on the above

mentioned ideas, I think it is important to start training students on listening sub-skills as early as possible.

Therefore, I find teaching listening sub-skills like (prediction, listening for gist and listening for detail) is a good

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choice after during this course. The main focus of the lesson is to give students a chance to practise listening

for gist and specific details. Also, they will be given a chance to practice prediction. Practising comprehensive

listening was not included for some reasons; first, this is their first listening sub-skills lesson. Second, the

authentic material is a challenge for their reported issues with following up with the audio’s speed. Third,

students need to gain confidence and build a good relationship with listening lessons.

I decided on the interactive model as an approach of teaching listening (which allows teachers to use both

to-down and bottom-up approach simultaneously), as I’ve tried both listening approaches and none of them was

effective solely. Students will be able to practice listening for the whole text as one unit, and by the end of the

lesson, they will be able to do some focusing on the text features. Students are always keen on learning some

new vocabularies or grammar points after every single lesson regardless of the lesson focus. Consequently,

this lesson presents discussing crime and punishment as one of the sub-aims. This stage will support practicing

their listening for specific information sub-skill, as they are asked to listen and report on specific words they

listened to during the input. My aim here was to watch the sub-achievements that take place (listening passage

features) while students are practicing listening target sub-skills.

Another concern was about choosing the listening material. Researchers (e.g. Brown C., Scrivener J.)

argued that teachers should be careful choosing listening material. They thought that authentic material will

raise students’ anxiety and reduce their comprehension. They also suggested using semi-authentic (adopted

authentic material (e.g. slowing the speed, less intonation)) or pedagogical material (made for teaching, but not

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necessarily have authentic features) for this stage. I was convinced for some time with this idea, and upon my

tutor’s advice, adopted materials from ‘New English File – Upper Intermediate”.

For this lesson I use the content of crime and punishment. Background information will be discussed before

the listening and some prdictions would be made to make the students feel comfortable with the topic. This

feeling of comfortability raises students’ enthusiasm and confidence. Therefore they can complete the listening

tasks despite of their weak linguistic competence as stated by Cook “our background knowledge sometimes

overrides the acoustic signals (sound waves) we hear” (Cook, 2008, 22).There are only two speakers in the

listening passage, and it takes the form of an interview. I believe taking care of length, difficulty and complexity

of the listening passage, gives much space for learners to practice the target sub-skills in a better way.

Word Count: 605

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LESSON PLAN:STAGE TIME INTERACTION AIM(S) OF STAGE PROCEDURESetting Context

&Encouraging Prediction /

10 minutes

Lockstep

Groupwork

Lockstep

To tell Students about the listening get them involved and encourage prediction.To provide them with lexical background on what they are going to listen to.

- Teacher displays different pictures of theft and elicits from students what these types are (home robbery, car theft, identity theft, pickpocketing).

- Teacher then provides a quiz for students to work on individually then check in groups, to provide background on what burgulars are.

- Student s are encouraged to provide examples using the lexical ítems drawing from their own experiences.

Listening for Gist

6 minutes

Lockstep

IndividualPairwork

to help Students practice reading for gist

- Teacher provides a poster of Oliver Twist and elicits from students that Fagin taught the boys to become pickpockets,to prepare them for the content of the listening.

- Students are presented with gist questions on the whiteboard, where they need to listen and choose the correct answer. Students check their answers in pairs then teacher provides feedback.

Listening for Details

12 minutes

Individual

Pairwork for feedback

to help Students practice reading for details

- Teacher handouts worksheet where students need to provide an answer to the provided questions after they listen.

- Students are instructed to work individually then check their answers in pairs and teacher uses ICQs (what are we providing in the worksheet? Are we working alone or in pairs?) and moves around to assure that they are on task.

Feedback: Teacher provides answers on the board and

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checks collectively with students.Listening for Specific Information

12 minutes

Individual

Pairwork for feedback

Students listen for noticing what are the interpretations of the words provied in the text.

- Teacher handouts worksheet where students need to provide details to the words states after they listen.

- Students are instructed to work individually then check their answers in pairs and teacher uses ICQs (what are we providing in the worksheet? Are we working alone or in pairs?) and moves around to assure that they are on task.

Feedback: Teacher provides answers sheet to each pair and checks collectively with students.

Freer Speaking Practice

20 minutes

Groupwork

Wholeclass

Lockstep

To provide a chance for Students to apply the content of crime in personalized free speaking practice

- Teacher displays the first slide of the powerpoint presentation again and asks students if they, or someone they know, had a similiar experience with theft and crime. Students are seated in groups of three, where each one has one minute to prepare and another minute to tell their story to the group. Teacher monitors cosely.

- Each groups nominates the best story to be shared with the rest of the class.

Feedback: teacher provides support and encouragement to students production and encourages other students participation though follow-up questions on the stories shared.

Bibliography:

Cook V., Second Language Learning and Language Teaching, Hodder Education, 2001.

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