Download doc - Recommendations for preparing to teach 3teachinternational.edu.au/downloads/RecommendationsFor... · Web viewRecommendations for Preparing Lesson Plans Updated: Nov 2010 by Warwick

Recommendations for Preparing Lesson Plans Updated: Nov 2010 by Warwick Thorn, Academic Manager, Teach International

This document is in three parts.

PART 1 Procedure to prepare a lesson plan from a topic…………………………….…. Page 2-16

PART 2 Procedure to prepare a lesson plan from a course book unit or part unit…..Page 17-25

PART 3 Reminders and help on how to teach your lesson……………………………….Page 26-37

Do not overlook this document, because there seems a lot of material. Depending on your practice teaching arrangement, you only need to follow either Part 1 or Part 2 and then you can use Part 3 to hone your skills as you progress.

If you follow the step by step guidelines in Part 1 or 2 your lesson plans will come together with minimal stress - one step at a time!

Teacher’s Grammar reference book

At this point in your training, you need a grammar reference book. If you do not yet have a grammar book, you should buy one now! Visit a bookstore where there are ESOL resources for sale and ask for teachers’ grammar reference books (University bookstores are a good place to start). There are suggested Grammar reference books on page 124 of your TESOL manual. Have a look for one that you feel helps you. Try:

Practical English Usage (3rd Edition) by Michael Swan, OUP.

Grammar for English Language Teachers: With exercises and a key by Martin Parrot. CUP. ISBN: 9780521477970

A Practical English Grammar (4th Edition) by A.J. Thomson & A.V. Martinet, OUP. ISBN: 9780194313421

Simpler student’s grammar book

If you also need a simpler grammar book, useful for setting student homework and for your own understanding of levels, try: Essential Grammar in Use Edition With Answers : A Self-Study Reference and Practice Book for Elementary Students of English (Paperback) by Raymond Murphy, CUP.AND English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM : A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English by Raymond Murphy, Cambridge. ISBN: 9780521532891

If you want something in between the above options, have a look at: Oxford Practice Grammar Basic, OUP. Oxford Practice Grammar Intermediate, OUP. Oxford Practice Grammar Advanced, OUP.

PART 1: PROCEDURE TO PREPARE A LESSON PLAN FROM A TOPICBack to top

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 1

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/isbn/7781?cc=global


http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/702-1820579-5756066?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Raymond%20Murphy

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/elt_projectpage.asp?id=2500216

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/702-1820579-5756066?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Raymond%20Murphy

http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521675437


http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521477970


INTRODUCTION

This resource will help you prepare lesson plans for your practice teaching component and/or in the early days of your teaching.

This document will use the established approach in terms of lesson stages that we introduced to you during the in-class component. You will be shown how to construct a lesson plan starting with a topic in mind, establish a communicative aim and context, and only then to establish a grammar or linguistic aim.

The trick to gain confidence with your teaching is to plan well so you know what you are going to teach and how. Then you can go over it in your mind and even act out how you will present and demonstrate through the lesson. This document is to help you plan well.

In addition to this document, you will also benefit by reading and viewing the video in http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html and using some Starter Lesson Plans for your first few lessons..

PROCESS TO UNDERSTAND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LESSON PLAN

The process outlined below helps you construct a lesson plan starting from a topic and is focussed on designing a lesson with a communicative speaking emphasis.

You will start by using a communicative aim as a primary aim and from a dialogue that you devise, establish a grammar/linguistic aim. There are various other ways to construct lesson aims, but you will see as you read through this document that using this approach enables you to be very clear about the communication you want to see students demonstrate at the end of the lesson. Using the communicative aim as a primary aim provides you with a method of discovering some useful grammar/linguistic patterns that you can also teach, while allowing you to focus on what real world communication you want you students to be able to do after they leave your lesson..

Following on from the steps below, there is a sample completed lesson plan provided.


http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/StarterLessonPlans.doc

http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/StarterLessonPlans.doc

http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html

LESSON PLANNING

STEP 1: Decide on your topic and start imagining a dialogue in that contextImagine that you were given the lesson topic of “festivals”. Whatever topic you have or choose, once you have decided on it, you can start imagining a dialogue in that context. It may help to google the topic on the internet. Imaging people talking about festivals in their country. That would be a common enough conversation, wouldn’t it?

You might think of talking about Australian festivals, but, no, don’t do that because you’ll be doing all the talking.

Okay, so that is just some basic thinking on the topic for a likely common conversation that could be of interest for the students.

STEP 2: Work out your communicative lesson aimIt is common to have two aims for one lesson. The first aim should be communicative and the second being a grammar/linguistic aim.

For the topic “festivals” here is a Communicative aim: “Students will be able to talk about local festivals in Australia and in their own countries”.

Notice how this aim is somewhat specific. It is more specific than “Students will be able to talk about events”, which would not be specific enough and your lesson would likely wander. It is less specific than “Students will be able to talk about South American festivals”, which would limit you being able to apply the communication to an area of student interest.

This Communicative aim guides your ideas for the activities of your lesson, will be reflected in the dialogue you come up with and in the free practice activity at the end of the lesson.

STEP 3: Work out a dialogue related to the communicative aimFrom your Communicative aim you can come up with some kind of dialogue that represents the communicative aim. This involves you imagining what people in the real world would be talking about in the situation. For example, you can imagine people talking about festivals from different countries. This fits with your communicative aim, right? Now, type out what that dialogue might look like. It could look like this:

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?B: Yes, really colourful ones.A: Is there any dancing?B: Yes, they like to dance and play music.A: Is there any special meaning behind the Carnival?B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason to say farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.

We try and make this dialogue as natural as we can.


STEP 4: Work out your Grammar/linguistic aimThe second aim should cover dominant grammar/linguistic pattern of the language. To work this out, look at the dialogue for some dominant language patterns or structure. Let’s underline where we can see some grammar/linguistic patterns. The two most common dominant patterns are grammatical and functional. There are more actually: 1st look for a grammar or functional phrases and decide on the most dominantif you could not find a pattern2nd look for idiomatic expressionsif you still cannot find a pattern3rd look for vocabulary (usually in specialist contexts like banking)if you still cannot find a pattern4th look decide on a pronunciation pattern

Okay, so lets’ look for a grammar pattern or functional phrases and decide on the most dominant.

Actually in this case we can see either would work. Don’t confuse functional phrases with grammar though. For your lesson decide on one, whichever seems more dominant or useful to you.

Grammatical focus Functional focusA: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?B: Yes, really colourful ones.A: Is there any dancing?B: Yes, they like to dance and (to) play music.A: Is there any special meaning behind the Carnival?B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason to say farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: What about costumes? Do they wear any?B: Yes, really colourful ones.A: How about dancing? Do they dance?B: Yes, they like to dance and (to) play music.A: Is there any special meaning behind the Carnival?B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also as a religious reason to say farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.

Whatever we call the underlined text is what your grammar/linguistic aim is.

If you look for the pattern above in the index of your grammar reference book, you will find “like + infinitives”. Now, you can write your grammar aim as that or a slight variation such as “like + infinitives (to dress/dance/march)”.

In the case above we have focussed more on what we call “functional language” rather than on any structured grammar. This is why we call it a “Grammar/linguistic aim” - sometimes there are clusters of phrases that clearly perform a function or functions within the language.

With functional phrases it is best to teach clusters of phrases to students and what the phrases are doing. Examples of functions are: Expressing preferences and obligations, Expressing feeling about a situation, Complaining and apologising with questioning, Describing other people and professions, Asking for and giving more detailed personal information, Describing different professions, Explaining habits, Describing past experiences. For teach of these functions you can imagine a few common phrases.

If we thought we would like to teach the functional underlined parts above, we could come up with a functionally focussed Grammar/linguistic aim, such as: “Phrases for asking for information (do you know…, what about…, how about…, is there any…)”. It helps to put just a few examples


of what you mean inside brackets.

If when you look at your dialogue, you cannot see any grammatical or functional patterns, then look for

Idiomatic expressions – there may be a number of those, then Idiomatic expressions ( …, …, …) can be your Grammar/linguistic aim.

If you sill cannot find a pattern then look for vocabulary. Some dialogues, because of the context, will have a lot of new vocabulary. So then underline those, the Vocabulary (… , … ,

…) can be your Grammar/linguistic aim.

Idiomatic expressions or new vocabulary are just as legitimate as a grammar or functional phrases. The point is to find a pattern and write it as your grammar/linguistic aim.

If you still cannot find a pattern, then you can always make an area of pronunciation the focus of your Grammar/linguistic aim. For example see below PART 3>PRONUNCIATION WORK.

A grammar/linguistic aim could just as legitimately be: Pronunciation (Weak Forms), or Pronunciation (consonant clusters) or Pronunciation (connected speech) or

Pronunciation (word stress) or Pronunciation (sentence stress) or Pronunciation (body language)

SummaryLook at your created dialogue, to underline a pattern

1st look for a grammar or functional phrases and decide on the most dominantif you could not find a pattern

2nd look for idiomatic expressionsif you still cannot find a pattern

3rd look for vocabularyif you still cannot find a pattern

4th look decide on a pronunciation pattern

There are examples of these different types of aims below under PART 4 Starter Lesson Plans.

Let’s revise. In summary, you have used the following order:STEP 1: Decide on your topic and start imagining a dialogue in that contextSTEP 2: Work out your Communicative aimSTEP 3: Work out a dialogue related to the communicative aimSTEP 4: Work out your Grammar/linguistic aim


STEP 5: Pre-teaching vocabulary workConsider what vocabulary the students may struggle with and pre-teach it at the beginning of your Target Language stage.

The vocabulary to focus on is that which could cause confusion for the students. The idea is to teach vocabulary before the point where you need to use it, so the students can generally make sense of the general script. In-fact before any activity at any part of your lesson check if there is any vocabulary that will confuse and pre-teach it. After that, begin the activity.

Let’s look at our dialogue and list some words that may need to be pre-taught. For example:

Pre-teach: Carnival, parade, downtown streets, costumes, special meaning, apparently, celebrate their culture, religious reason, pleasures of the flesh.



STEP 6: Work out Form and Use (Rule) of the Target Language (language you have underlined)

Oh, dear, yes. Not only do you highlight some Target Language, by underlining, you do actually need to understand it. You can achieve this using grammar reference books and also using the internet to find out about the grammar. You might be confused at first, but once you think it through, you will realise that you do intuitively understand it. At the end of this process you will decide on a minimal summary of what we call the FORM and USE to put on the board during the Target Language stage of the Lesson. Okay, it does seem a bit unfair - you might spend even up to an hour working it out and then in the lesson cover it in a few minutes. Form is the way words are constructed and word order. USE explains how and when we use it.

Grammar Reference books always have headings, then they list the FORM, then they list USES. So, as long as you can find the grammar point in your book you will find information on the FORM and USE. But there will be a lot of information on each. In the case of Use there are often a number of USES that are listed. You don’t teach it all – just select a little of the FORM to cover in your lesson and one of the USES.

TIP: Don’t try and guess this, or you will get it wrong and the students will know it! Use grammar books and the internet until you are clear.

Here we show some form and meaning that you could select from your grammar book for your grammar point.

If you chose a functional focus the grammar book will not help you. In that case you drop your phrases into substitution tables, name the table and add similar examples. Doing this serves the same purpose – to make clear the FORM (word order) and USE (how and when we use it).



Grammar/linguistic aim: “Like + infinitives (to dress/dance/march)”.

“Phrases for asking for information (do you know/what about/how about/is there any)”.

FORMLike + infinitive (to dress/dance/march)

MEANING“they like to dance”is close to “they like dancing”

the difference is:

“to dance” has more focus on the thing being done in a specific context. In this case the specific context is the Brazilian Carnival

“like dancing” expresses more the enjoyment, so is better for talking more generally about your personal likes.

NOTE: During the Target Language stage of your lesson this will go on the board and you can refer to it, not in great depth, but enough to clarify the

FORM AND MEANING

To ask about knowledgeDo you know Have you heard about…Have you ever seen anything about…

To ask for more detailWhat about costumes? How about

To ask if something existsIs there anyIs there a

NOTE: During the Target Language stage of your lesson this will go on the board and you can refer to it, not in great depth, but enough to clarify the


FORM and USE of the underlined target language. Don’t get too carried away. Don’t include all the detail you will find. Just try and simplify your point as succinctly as possible. Expect that students already know this and you are just revising, because students usually have an in depth understanding of grammar - more than the teacher. Your role is just to show the link where this target language is used in a context of communication.

FORM and USE of the underlined target language. Don’t get too carried away. Don’t include all the detail you will find. Just try and simplify your point as succinctly as possible. Expect that students already know this and you are just revising, because students usually have an in depth understanding of grammar - more than the teacher. Your role is just to show the link where this target language is used in a context of communication.

STEP 7: Decide on some concept checking questions (CCQs) for the Target Language: General CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language)

Now, you have the text on the board you need to ask some concept checking questions (CCQs) to help with understanding. We are going to go from general to specific like a funnel.

General CCQs (for the context)

These are general questions to check the students understand the general situation/dialogue. Naturally, they need to understand this first, before focussing on the specific meaning of any underlined target language.

Here is our sample dialogue again.


Here are some example General CCQs for the context:

What is a carnival?Here is a picture of a Brazilian Carnival. What can you see in it?The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “celebrate” mean?The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “farewell to the pleasures of the flesh” mean?


Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language):

These will be possible, because of the prior work you have done to establish the USE.

Let’s work some Specific CCQs out for the grammatical and functional options, so you can see the difference.




MEANING“they like to dance”is close to “they like dancing”

the difference is:



FORM AND MEANING

To ask about knowledgeDo you know Have you heard about…Have you ever seen anything about…

To ask for more detailWhat about costumes? How about

To ask if something existsIs there anyIs there a

Specific CCQsWhat do you think the difference between “like to dance” and “like dancing” is?

One of them expresses more enjoyment. Which one?

TIP: At this point students may raise all sorts of odd questions. Some of them you will know because the research you did when working out the grammar and you can answer the question. If a student asks you a tricky grammar question, you have two choices:

a) ask them to give you an example in a sentence, then write that sentence on the board under the correct sentence from your dialogue. E.g.,

1. … they like to dance … 2. … they like dance to …

Then ask the student to tell you why 2 is not correct. Often someone in the class can, and if not it becomes apparent to you and you can answer. In this case the answer is that, in

Specific CCQsIf you want to ask me if I know something about a carnival of festival in your country what would you say?Expected answer: Do you know.. Have you heard about… Have you ever seen anything about…

Ask me if I know more about that? Expected answer: What about costumes? How about…

Ask me if something exists? Expected answer: Is there any… Is there a…

TIP: At this point students may ask about other phrases. You can decide if they fit in the substitution boxes or not.

If the suggested phrases do not fit in the boxes, you have two choices:

a) ask them to give you an example in a sentence, then write that sentence on the board E.g.,

“Can you tell me about…”


English we have a verb structure called the infinitive where “to” goes before the verb.

If you cannot answer it …

b) write it on the left side of the board. Tell the student you will check for a proper answer because you want to tell them properly and there is not time right now in the lesson. Tell them in your next lesson. Ask some other teachers for the answer and tell them next time you see them.

Then ask the student to tell you why this does not fit in the boxes you already have. Often someone in the class can, and if not it becomes apparent to you and you can answer. In this case the answer is that, ‘Can’ is more often used as a request when you think the person has the ability or knowledge to give it to you. You might even add a new substitution table on the board. E.g.,

To ask about knowledge where you are sure the person knows

Can you tell me about…What happens in …

If you cannot answer it, go to …

b) Same is left column.

Tip:

Especially when you are in training it helps to pre-write your dialogue/context on paper. Alternatively if you are early you can write it up on the board before the lesson.

If you have not had time to write up your dialogue and certainly as you gain experience you can write up word and letter prompts and then elicit the dialogue content from the students. It won’t take long to write it up like this – perhaps this can be done while the students are working on a review activity just prior to the target language stage.

For example, you could write this on the board:A: Do y__ k___ a______ t__ Brazilian C______?B: Yes, they p______ through d_______ s______.A: ___ ______ ____ a__ costumes?B: Yes, really c________ o____.A: Is t______ any d_______?B: Yes, t___ like to d_____ and p_____ m_____.A: I_ t____ any special meaning b______ the C_______?B: Apparently t___ like to c________ their culture a___ t____ i_ a____ a religious r_______ to say farewell t_ t__ pleasures o_ t__ f____.

You then elicit idea from the students for the gaps and fill it in as a class activity.

This can be a little tricky because you will need to deal with students alternative ideas at the same time. Don’t try this for your first lesson, but by all means try it for later lessons. The idea here is to encourage the students, as much as possible to give you what language they already know.

You should still put something on the FORM and USE on the board, in the same way as above and ask General CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language).


STEP 8: Think of media to create context (pictures etc)You can also add meaning and context by using media. In this case you might be able to download some audio of the carnivals, or at least pictures. Once you have some media related to the topic it can be used at any point in the lesson. It is always good to do a small search of media that could be used in your lessons.

STEP 9: Decide what pronunciation drilling work to do on the Target LanguageYou should also drill the students in the pronunciation. There can be some variation from the steps we showed you on the in-class component/course:

Level Pronunciation drilling methodBeginners/Elementary Drill the whole dialoguePre-intermediate Drill the whole dialogueIntermediate

Rather than the whole text, select a number of clauses or phrases to concentrate drilling on how the words join together when said in a natural rhythm.

Upper-Intermediate

How to drill? Be a conductor! The purpose of drilling students is to get them to follow along with the sentence stress/rhythm. Have you ever seen a conductor jabbing the air for each note? No, they are waving their wand with the beat and rhythm. Likewise, you should not point at each individual word.

If you are right handed, wave your hand like a conductor when you model saying the sentence and in just the same way while students are repeating. Remember Choral – Individual drilling? It is also like a funnel:

It also helps a lot to add stress markers to your dialogue

To work these out, say the dialogue out loud to yourself a number of times, “naturally” while over-gesturing the rhythm with your hands. As you do you will start to hear the rhythm of what you are saying. Just put some dots on your lesson plan and on the dialogue on the board. This will help you and the students to stick to the rhythm as you also conduct with your hand.

Another thing that can go wrong with drilling, is that the students start at different times. Again, you need to conduct them on cue to start at a sentence at the same time. Try using your other hand to signal a sentence cue in. Maybe you will do it naturally with your eyebrows. Maybe you will naturally start saying the words when you are gesturing them to repeat.Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 11

Practice drilling in front of a mirror.

Finish drilling off with a pair’s practice of the dialogue.

STEP 10: Design a practice activity, or activities (controlled)

Take the dialogues text and turn it into either:a) a gap fill activity using a handout.b) a jigsaw with a student A and student B sheet, completed by back to back talking.c) Cut up the dialogue into strips so pairs have one speaker each, then ask them to match up the dialogue by reading them out (number the first two lines to get them going.d) Cut up the dialogue and distribute. Get the class to make up the dialogue, with the teachers guidance.e) A running dictation, where the dialogue, or the A or B part is on a wall at the back of the class.

STEP 11: Practice activity (semi-controlled - free)

Now, you might think of another activity where the students can use the language in a freer way. So far you have controlled the language the students have been using and for those you had pre-designed the dialogue.

This semi-controlled – free activity should match the communicative aim. In our example the communicative aim is: Students will be able to talk about local festivals in Australia and in their own countries. To help you understand how to construct these activities make sure you look at the video in http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html. this file was also linked to at the top of this document.

For semi-controlled – free activities you can design some prompt or role play cards that will enable the students to do exactly what the communicative aim says. Don’t worry about thinking about the Grammar/linguistic aim, because it will naturally flow out of the conversation.

For our example, you could have some cards with some more pictures of festivals, with some facts about the festival on the other side of the picture. While an A student can see the picture and ask questions about it, the B student can answer by constructing sentences from the facts on their side of the card. In this case, you need to think of how the activity would work. There will need to be a rule that the students have to face each other for the activity. Note any rules in your lesson plan.

You would demonstrate it with you being A and B or with you as A and a confident student as B. Once you have demonstrated it, set them up to practice in pairs. You should still have the target language on the board and remember you are hoping they will use some of the underlined text in this activity. So, while you are demonstrating, keep an eye on the target language and even point when you happen to use some of the target language. The students will do the same during the activity and you will likely be very pleased with the result. The result is seeing your aims realised! Your students using the new language in a real world context!

Once you set the activity in motion, you can facilitate by going around helping them by echo correction if they make grammatical or pronunciation errors. An alternative is to go around writing down some errors you hear. Then for the take up, write them on the board, working with the students to correct the errors.


http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html

STEP 12: Possible extended reading or writing activity

NOTE: If you are teaching a one hour lesson, do not do this, because you won’t have time. Only do this if you are taking a class for two or more hours.

You might build in extended reading and writing activities to your lessons.

For this lesson, you could have a reading activity from a magazine on festivals or perhaps an online article, that you can copy and paste into a Word document with your exercise questions added. For writing you could get students to write an email home to describe a festival or other event they have experienced. These are just an example of ideas – you come up with your own.

Blending skills lessons include one or more of the macro skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. They can be built by:a) connecting up the different models for skills lesson stages. E.g., a listening lesson follows on from a speaking focussed lesson. Any combination can be constructed.b) using shorter (listening or reading) activities for the review section.

For the sake of simplicity the following lesson plan stages should be used:

Speaking focussed lesson stages: Warmer, Review, Target Language (includes some pronunciation work), Controlled - Free Practice activities, homework.

Listening focussed lesson stages: Pre-listening, listening, post-listening. The emphasis is on skill, not a grammar/linguistic aim. Usually this pre, during and post sequence will be shorter than an hour, perhaps integrated into the review, or in the activity stage of your lesson plan. This may be preceded by a Target Language stage and the listening might include viewing of video or music.

Reading focussed lesson stages: Pre-reading, reading, post-reading. Emphasis is on skill, not a grammar/linguistic aim. Usually this pre, during and post sequence will be shorter than an hour, perhaps integrated into the review, or in the activity stage of your lesson plan. This may be preceded by a Target Language stage and the reading might include summarised or full real world texts such as from emails, letters, articles or magazine interviews.

Writing focussed lesson stages: Pre-writing, Target Language/ pre-writing (model, Language work, guidelines), note taking (optional), writing1 (draft), writing2 (rewriting stage). The teacher may correct the students writing outside of class (usually by using a writing correction key), writing3 (Final copy), post-writing (discussion). Usually, writing lessons will be two hours long or longer and they are often split to allow for the teacher to do some marking.

Children's lesson stages: Warm up, Review, Vocabulary / context, Activity for vocabulary practice, Target Language (first small block of language)(TL 1), Activity from TL 1, Target Language (second added on small block of language)(TL2), Activity from TL 2, Reinforcement Activity to combine practices of TL 1 and TL2, Homework. Basically, the sections are broken up into smaller chunks to account for children's lower attention span. Also, children's lesson will have physical involvement wherever possible.

STEP 13: WarmerNow, think of a warmer for starting the lesson. In this example we are looking at festivals, so maybe you could ask for volunteers to talk about festivals in their countries. Because you will have done some research you would know the names of a few. Another idea could be to play some music from festivals or carnivals and ask them to guess where the music is from.

STEP 14: Review and HomeworkReview: If you taught the class before you could add a review into your lesson. Otherwise, see part 3 of this document there are specific examples of how to include some pronunciation work in addition to drilling (Page 29 -32).

If you are going to teach them again you could add a homework section. But if it is an extra class, it may be too much to expect them to do homework – in that case set some really easy homework, such as to have a similar conversation with someone during the week.


STEP 15: Write up your lesson plan and prepare any materialsNow that you have your lesson plan stages, (Warmer, Review, Target Language, Activities, Homework) you should write up your lesson plan. Also you should prepare any resources, pictures or cards for example, or dialogue that you will use for your lesson.

Let’s just revise the steps:

STEP 1: Decide on your topic and start imagining a dialogue in that contextSTEP 2: Work out your Communicative aimSTEP 3: Work out a dialogue related to the communicative aimSTEP 4: Work out your Grammar/linguistic aimSTEP 5: Select a block of text for the Target Language stage of the lessonSTEP 6: Elicit the target language (possibly to a substitution table) for the Target LanguageSTEP 7: Decide on some concept checking questions (CCQs) for the Target Language: General CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language)STEP 8: Think of media to create context (pictures etc)STEP 9: Decide what pronunciation drilling work to do on the Target LanguageSTEP 10: Design a practice activity, or activities (controlled)STEP 11: Practice activity (semi-controlled - free)STEP 12: Possible extended reading or writing activity STEP 13: Warmer STEP 14: Review and Homework STEP 15: Write up your lesson plan and prepare any materials


SAMPLE COMPLETED LESSON PLAN

This sample lesson plan is expanded from the one on page 357 in your TESOL course manual. This is because we are asking you to take into account a number of additional issues: The aims section has been added so that you are asked to have a communicative as well as a grammar/linguistic aim, the activity stages have been split to define controlled and semi-controlled activities, a pre-teaching vocabulary section has been added, optional reading and writing sections have been added, with notes on when to include them.

NOTE: Remember also that if you are teaching children the stages are broken up differently as per page 358 of your TESOL course manual.

Lesson Plan

Teacher: ___________________ Date: ___________

Time: _________________ Room: ______

Level: Pre-intermediate

Age: Teens/Young Adults/Adults

Topic/Theme: FestivalsCommunicative aim:Students will be able to talk about local carnivals and festivals in Australia and in their own countries.Linguistic/Grammar aim:Like + infinitives (to dress/dance/march).Stages Activities and notes ResourcesWarmer5 minutes

Play some music from carnivals and ask them to guess where the music is from.

recorded music, player

Review From something you have taught them before or some pronunciations.

Target Language(Drill-work)

15 minutes

Pre-teach vocab: Carnival, parade, downtown streets, costumes, special meaning, apparently, celebrate their culture, religious reason, pleasures of the flesh.

Carnivals pictures on whiteboard:

Dialogue to board (add sentence stress dots, now or just before drilling)

Model

General CCQs:What is a carnival?Here is a picture of a Brazilian Carnival. What can you see in it?The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “celebrate” mean?The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “farewell to the pleasures of the flesh” mean?

Matching meaning with word cards

3 sets of pictures


CCQs specific:

Can we say, “they like dance? Expected answer: NOCan we say, “they like to dance?” Expected answer: YESCan we say, “they like dancing” Expected answer: YES, actually.Can anyone tell me the difference between“they like to dance?” and “they like dancing” in this dialogue? Expected answer: <maybe someone answers correctly>Explain the difference by reading out the difference as written under USE below.

USE (rule) to the board

USE“they like to dance”is close to “they like dancing”

the difference is:



FORM to the board:


Drill – Model, Choral, individual Drill part of the target language [just a part for pre-intermediate level]. Choral – individual drilling.A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?B: Yes. And they like to dance and play music.

Pairs practice

Activities(Controlled)10 minutes


Check answers correct in pairs, then as class.

Two sets of multiple cards: Question and Answer cards on different carnivals.

Pre-teach vocab5 minutes

Centrepiece, formal dress, flashy, betting, sweep stakes, attendance. Matching meaning with word cards

Activities A: Do you know about the Australian Melbourne Cup Day? Two sets of Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 16

(Controlled)10 minutes

B: Yes, it is a horse race held in Melbourne and the centrepiece of the Spring Carnival.A: How do people dress when they go to the race?B: They wear formal dress with the women wearing colourful and flashy hats.A: Is there much betting?B: Yes, around Australia, people run sweep stakes and there is a lot of celebrating.A: Is there any special history behind the Melbourne Cup?B: It started in 1838 and in 1865 it became a public holiday in the state of Victoria, with the biggest attendance being 120,000 people. The total prize money is over four million dollars.

multiple cards: Question and Answer cards on different carnivals.

Activities(Semi-controlled - Free)15 minutes

Students find information about carnivals and events, by asking questions. Rule: Students back to back. Student’s answering can only answer direct questions and offer hints.

Take-up: Get questioning students to summarise to the class. Echo correct language as needed.

Cards with more pictures of carnivals form the countries where the students are from - information on the other side of pictures.

Source info and pics form the Internet

Reading15 minutes

Possible extended reading activity Students to answer questions on article based on a magazine article on an Australian Carnival or Event. Students to answer three main questions (skimming for gist) on topic. Students to answer three questions on details of the text (scanning). Elicit opinions on meaning

Magazine article on an Australian Carnival or Event.

Writing30-45 minutes

Possible extended writing activity Write about a festival or event in your own country or one that you have attended in another country.

Check students understand and each has topic. Help with planning 5 minute time limit for first draft Look at drafts and help with ides and indicate areas for students to correct.

Homework Prepare for a class presentation on any carnival, festival or event

Also refer to your TESOL manual:

Unit 6: Lesson Planning and Syllabus>How to make a great lesson.Unit 2: English – An International Language>Lesson Plan Model.Unit 9 Activities.


Want the above format? Copy and past this into a Word document. The Starter Lesson plans in section 4 can also be selected and pasted into your own word document.

Lesson Plan

Teacher: Date:

Time: Room:

Level:

Age:

Topic/Theme:Communicative aim:Linguistic/Grammar aim:Stages Activities and notes Resources

CONCLUDING REMARKS

If you can check these off you are ready to teach:

I have researched the topic. I have prepared my Lesson Plan. My aims are clear. My target language is clear. If it was my first lesson I have had some feedback on it and updated it as necessary. I have checked out the grammar in a grammar book or online and considered variations that students might spring on me. Each stage is clear and I have the resources prepared for each stage, ordered so when I get to the class I can locate the bits I need for each stage. I have worked out where I am going to do my practice teaching and how to get there with about 30 minutes lead time (time to meet/find any people involved + 15 minutes before hand to set up the classroom. I have some professional looking clothes to wear.

You don’t really need luck, now, but good luck anyway ! If you feel nervous realise that as long as you have checked off this list, it will be just fine. Teaching is a bit of an art, so there will always be things that you can improve. That is the nature of it. After the lesson, reflect on what was positive and what you can improve and realise that you are now teaching real ESOL students. Your TESOL experience has begun .


PART 2: PROCEDURE TO PREPARE A LESSON PLAN FROM A COURSE BOOK UNIT OR PART UNITBack to top

INTRODUCTION

This resource will help you prepare lesson plans by adapting and adding to course book units or part units.

To do this we need to explore the lesson aims to ensure your adaptations and/or additions are relevant and meet the needs and interests of students.

When we do this, we will retain an emphasis on communicative aims. This is because we are considering the communicative aim as more important than the grammar/linguistic aim. The idea of your language teaching is to teach students to ‘use’ the language and that use is serve the students needs and interests. Grammar/linguistic content, as with vocabulary and pronunciation is a building block to enable the students to use English. Therefore the communicative aim should be the dominant aim.

Procedure:Step 1. Decide what unit or part unit is being covered from the course book. NOTE: Often a unit will take up to three hours, so when we are looking at delivering over an hour, we need to decide what part of the unit is being covered. In this case we will agree to teach From English in Mind, Unit 7, p48-49:


Step 2. Note the different focus in the unit, or part unit in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it notes. These will be: Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing (to a model), Writing (creative), Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Task based. NOTE: Often units provide headings, which make this clear, as below. Units often cover a range of skills that are logically linked.


Step 3. Note lesson stages in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it notes. Because many lessons are integrated skills lesson, there can be the full common range of stages. First, find the speaking focussed stages, then check for vocabulary and pronunciation stages. Thirdly, look for listening, reading and writing stages. Lastly, look for and any task based activity.

Focus Stages to note in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it notes.All lessons warmer, review, Speaking presentation, controlled practice, semi-controlled practice, free practiceListening pre-listening, listening-gist, listening-detail, post listeningReading pre-reading, reading-gist, reading-detail, post readingWriting (to a model) model, language work, imitate modelWriting (creative) brainstorm, structuring ideasGrammar Eliciting form, form, controlled practice, semi-controlled practice, free practiceVocabulary pre-teaching vocab, vocab developmentPronunciation pronunciationTask based Task based activity



Step 4. Write down the grammar/linguistic aim of the lesson or part lesson. The grammar is usually outlined in the contents page, however, there may be a grammar items covered over the unit. If you are teaching part of a unit work out which grammar is covered in that part and write it down as your grammar aim.

Here is the information from the course book table of contents. This is the whole chapter, so unless you are teaching the whole chapter only one some of these grammar and linguistic areas may be covered in your section:

You can look at the course book pages:

So, here is your Linguistic/Grammar aim:

Linguistic/Grammar aim: Make & do + Present perfect passive + Future passive

If you like you can specify further, which could include some examples of the language: Make & do (eg “…make room for…”) + Present perfect passive (Eg “…have been built…”) + Future passive (Eg …will be built…)

OR it could require you to locate the particular use in your grammar reference book:Make & do (in collocations) + Present perfect passive (past events with emphasis on subject) + Future passive (future events with emphasis on subject)

Step 5. Write down the communicative aim of the lesson or part lesson. You can come up with a communicative aim by primarily describing production. It is determined by how the students will be able to “use” the language by the end of your lesson in order to achieve a communicative purpose.

Note: The linguistic and grammatical patterns provide hooks as users build and manipulate language to achieve their communicative aims, so you won’t expect to find your communicative aim by looking at the grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation areas. Look at the communication expressed by listening, speaking, reading, and writing. When we look at these we see that listening and reading are receptive – ie we are receiving communication, and speaking and writing are productive ie we are producing language. Sometimes communicative aims are found in the receptive skills, where they are ends in themselves, but more often than not communicative aims are found in the productive skills of speaking and writing.

If we focus on the productive skills of speaking and writing, we can see that the Communicative aim is : Communicative aim: The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak, space exploration, computers …)If we also take into account the preceding receptive skills we can see two aims:Communicative aims: The students will be able to understand views expressed about proposed town planning (5 Listening)+ The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak, space exploration, computers …)Step 6. Form an opinion of what could be added or adapted while focussing on the communicative aim. Think about what might be boring, what their needs and interests are, what type of conversations, interactions, or writing can you imagine the students enjoying or needing. When doing this think of it as a matter of adaptation, rather than throwing out the course book material.

The following ideas are related to the communicative aim/s and therefore generally need to be devised by the teacher. In most cases supplementary activity books are indexed by grammar point, which, though providing additional practice of the grammar structure, won’t keep the lesson on task in terms of the communicative aim. By coming up with ideas focus on a communicative aim, you ensure students Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 23

language production is geared to real world use.

Firstly, you might adapt the content of activities:For the “5 Listen” section, there could be an additional listening activity on expected town planning changes in the city where the class is being held. To get that you may need to find out information which you can then report to the class.and /orFor the “9 Speak” section, the topics could be changed to be more relevant to the interests and motivations of the students. For example, if the students are mid teens, the topics could be (your town, technology in our daily lives, social networking via the internet).

Notice that these ideas are close enough to the original language focus and that we have not changed the skill.

Secondly, you might change the skill of the activity:For the “8 Grammar: Future passive” section, you could turn the © Gap fill activity into a speaking activity. To do this you might type each sentence, so you have an A4 landscape sheet of all the sentences, with the same gap fills. Photocopy that and then cut the sentences in two, eg

The town authorities have announced that a new sports centre ……………… (build) over the next five years.

This could work with pairs of students having sets of half the sentences and the rule that they have to work out the complete sentence by talking (not looking!). The course book can be closed and then the take up could be by confirming the correct answers with the class to write into the course book.

Notice that this idea is close enough to the original language focus and that we have not changed the skill.

Thirdly, you might add a new activity:At the end of the “5 Listen” or the “9 Speak” section, there could be a reading activity cut out of a local English paper about some proposed town planning change. Dealing with it as a reading text the students could also discuss their ideas of the proposed change. This discussion, then would be building confidence in line with the productive Communicative aim.

Because, in this case we are adding something, the lesson will take longer and we might want to drop something out which we don’t think is important. Possibly you could drop out the whole “7 Grammar” section.

Step 7. Form an opinion of what could be added or adapted while focussing on the linguistic/grammar aim. There are a number of supplementary activity books which are indexed by grammar point. If you feel any of the grammar points presented in the course book need further work, you can explore reference these for interesting additions or adaptations of ideas.

Teach International has published two resources:

Treasure Trove of Tricks for TESOL Teachers (TTTTT), which offers a number of game activities which can be indexed by grammar point and works across a number of levels.

Best Basic Book for Building Beginners (BBBBB), which suggests a number of game activities which can indexed by grammar point and works for lower level classes.

Step 8. Design your adapted or new activities. Go ahead and design the resources for your changes. It can be that you have been too creative and in reality need to thin down your ideas, simply because of the work required. In some cases resources are photocopiable and in other cases you will need to develop the resources yourself.


Step 10. Write up your lesson plan. Use the following format. Refer to the completed example, in PART 1 of this document. Remember that although you have the course book to rely on, writing up your lesson plan will consolidate in your thinking “how” you will deliver the lesson.

KEY: Black font is taken from the course book. Red text is from the lesson stages that were worked out. The purple text is added to enhance Ss understanding of the grammar rules. Blue are activities, that are either adapted or added, as per discussion above.

Lesson Plan

Teacher: ___________________ Date: ___________

Time: _________________ Room: ______

Level: Intermediate

Age: Teens/Young Adults

Topic/Theme: (English in Mind, Unit 7) discussing pending changes for the future - Town planning and other topics Communicative aim:The students will be able to understand views expressed about proposed town planning (5 Listening)+ The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak, space exploration, computers …)Linguistic/Grammar aim:Make & do (in collocations) + Present perfect passive (past events with emphasis on subject) + Future passive (future events with emphasis on subject)Stages Activities and notes ResourcesWarmer 5 minutes

Pretend that a decision has been made to have the Olympics in their city. Get them to ask questions about how what will happen. Answer with Present perfect passive for what has been done so far and Future passive for what will be done.

Review ONLY NEEDED IF TAUGHT THEM BEFOREPre-listening“5 Listen”15 minutes

a) Listen to Samantha and Phil and decide who likes and dislikes the plan

For the “5 Listen” section, there could be an additional listening activity on expected town planning changes in the city where the class is being held. To get that you may need to find out information which you can then report to the class.

CD and CD player 5.aP48

Have interviewed someone to get information

Listening – gistSKIMMING

b) gist questions about Samantha listening to a crowd CD and CD player 5.bp48

Listening – detailSCANNING

c) detail questions of Phil talking to crowd CD and CD player 5.cp48

Post-listening EVALUATING5 minutes

Ss in pairs to decide who they agree with. Take-up

Don’t think I will add the idea from above.

P48

Vocabulary development“6 Vocab”10 minutes

Make and Do.

a) Completing sentences from CD audio.

Do first two with whole class. At end do pairs check - class take up.

b) Make and Do matched to in collocations. First one together – individually – facilitate – take up.

Course book CD and CD playerp48

Presentation“7 Grammar”

Present Perfect Passive Course book p49


Pre-listening

Form

7a. As per book – do as class.

Rule: try and elicit answer.Ie We form the present perfect passive with the present perfect form of the verb “to have” + the “past participle.

CCQs: Do we know who did these things? What is important – what has been done, or who did it? Have these things happened in the past or are they happening now? A = past

Controlled practice

b) Complete the sentences, as per book. First two as class, then in pairs. Pairs check. Take-up.

Course book p49

Eliciting form“8 Grammar”

Form

a) For the “8 Grammar: Future passive” section, you could turn the © Gap fill activity into a speaking activity. To do this you might type each sentence, so you have an A4 landscape sheet of all the sentences, with the same gap fills. Photocopy that and then cut the sentences in two, eg

The tow The town authorities have announced that a new sports centre ……………… (build) over the next five years.

This could work with pairs of students having sets of half the sentences and the rule that they have to work out the complete sentence by talking (not looking!). The course book can be closed and then the take up could be by confirming the correct answers with the class to write into the course book.CCQs:Have these things been done in the past? No, future.Do we know who is doing these things? NoDo we care who is doing these things? NoAre we sure these things are going to happen? YesAre we more likely to see this grammar in written or spoken English? WrittenALTERNATIVESWhat else could we “say” about a future event? “A lot of really nice trees in the park are going to be cut down”. OR “They’re going to cut down a lot of really nice trees in the park”

b) Elicit rule ieWe will form the future passive with “will” or “shall” + “be” + “the past participle”CCQs: Do we know who will do these things? What is important – what will be done, or who will do it? Have these things happened in the past or are they happening now? A = neither – the future

Course book p50

Sentences cut up for A&B pairwork – one set for each pair.

Controlled practice

As per course book. First, ask what sorry is about. Then do first close together, the rest in pairs. Then pairs check. For take-up check all answers with class.

Course book p50

Semi-controlled practice“9 Speak”

For the “9 Speak” section, the topics could be changed to be more relevant to the interests and motivations of the students. For example, if the students are mid teens, the topics could be (your

Course book p50


town, technology in our daily lives, social networking via the internet). Have sample sentences on board and demonstrate starting a discussion using the tense.

Homework Based on the Olympic idea introduced in the warmer, write 2 sentences on what has been made so far to have the Olympics in their city. Eg The swimming pool has been build next to our school.Then 2 sentences on what will happen before the opening. Eg The athletics track will be build in the central park


PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSONBack to top

| MARKING CRITERIA | ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TEACHING | LESSON AIMS | SELECTING MATERIAL SUITABLE FOR THE CLASS LEVEL | PRESENTING TARGET LANGUAGE AND SUBSTITUTION TABLES | DEMONSTRATING ACTIVITIES | GOAL AND RULES OF ACTIVITIES | EXTENDED READING OR WRITING ACTIVITY | IMAGINE THE LESSON | TWEAK YOUR ACTIVITIES FOR A LISTENING AND SPEAKING EMPHASIS | THE WHITEBOARD | WEB RESOURCES FOR IDEAS | PRONUNCIATION WORK |

MARKING CRITERIABack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

Consider how your lesson covers the marking criteria that you will be evaluated against for your formal observation:

Were you “Well Prepared and Organised (lesson plan, resources, etc)”?• Appropriate lesson plan used (adults or children)• Suitable objectives for the level and age of learners• Aids and materials appropriate and well organised• Lesson and materials appropriate for the age and cultural background of learners

How was your “Overall Classroom/Lesson Management”?• Developed positive rapport with students• Used pair and group work effectively• Facilitation of activities• Appropriate use of materials and whiteboard

Was it a “Student-Centred Classroom/Lesson”?• Included interactive activities• Appropriate ratio of student/teacher talk time (goal 80/20)• Activities demonstrated not explained• Target language clearly and effectively presented• Used positive reinforcement

How were your “Presentation Skills”?• Gave clear instructions• Used non-verbal communication effectively • Speech was appropriately graded• Spoke with a clear voice at a suitable pace • Lesson was well paced

For your next lesson, focus on any areas you feel you were not in control of and take into account the following points.

ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TEACHINGBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

The need for a communicative emphasis is particularly important for your practice teaching arrangement. If you are teaching at a language school the students will likely have been studying for some time before your lesson. They will be tired, and even more so, they will need to be ‘using’ the language or you will lose their attention. So it is more what you are getting them to do than about your teaching. If in your first lesson you spent more time than you planned explaining and presenting the target language, it may be because you got caught up trying to help them understand everything. In this case accept the challenge of getting through the target language section in swift time, so you don’t lose time providing the practice the students want.

Let me also try and make a very basic point as clear as possible about what you are teaching. Although lessons have topics you are not actually teaching the topic. In the explanations for the lesson above students are going to be talking about festivals, but they are not really learning about festivals –not directly, anyway. They are learning about talking about festivals and/or they are Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 28

learning the English they would use if they were participating in a festival. It is the utterances and structures of languages, interactions and dialogues you are teaching. Yes, they will learn something about festivals, but you should consider that as peripheral learning. Don’t get sidetracked into discussion on the context, apart from where it helps understand the meaning.

LESSON AIMSBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

For the purposes of preparing your lesson plans for practice teaching we started by using a Communicative aim and followed with a Grammar/linguistic aim. There are various other ways to construct lesson aims, but you can see that using this approach enables us to be very clear about the communication we want to see students demonstrate at the end of the lesson. Using this aim as a primary aim provides us with a method of discovering some useful grammar/linguistic patterns that we can also teach.

The purpose of lesson aims is to identify and state what you want the students to be able to do at the end of a lesson. Whether they are called aims, objectives or outcomes this purpose is the same.

SELECTING MATERIAL SUITABLE FOR THE CLASS LEVELBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

Trainee teachers find it difficult to know how to teach to the level of the students and that also affects how you are thinking of using materials and the selection of your linguistic/grammar aim.

This is why we have provided some starter lesson plans in the last section of this document. These will start you off at the right level.

As a guide for what the levels mean, refer to your TESOL course manual “Unit 4 – Levels” and also we can or have provided a file on ESOL Class Levels and Practice Teaching.doc.

PRESENTING TARGET LANGUAGE AND SUBSTITUTION TABLESBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

In addition to the instructions in Part 1 of this document, you can think more specifically on how you can present your Target Language. We have looked at how you can provide a pre-prepared dialogue, perhaps with some words missing and how you can elicit the text. Then we looked at how to ask concept checking questions to check students understand the meaning and form. You should always stick to this eliciting and concept checking procedure, but there are other ways to present target language than a dialogue.


One other commonly used method for eliciting the target language called a substitution table. Here is an example:

In the Brazilian Carnival, people

parade through downtown streets.

They dress in costumes. They like to dance and play music

to celebrate their culture and there is also as a religious reason to say farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.

Here you break up a sentence or sentences into tables where some of the tables can be substituted. The process allows you to analyse the language patterns, as much as it helps the students to see the patterns. Check the students understand the meaning of your model text and elicit other options that can go in the boxes. As they give you what they know, you consolidate it by making changes so that it is correct language.

If you are observing or in an assistant teacher role you will notice a section of the course book/lesson focuses on new language. Consider the context in which it is presented and how the meaning is clarified. Perhaps you will teach this segment and can adapt the way the course book presents new/target language, such as for a context more immediate to the students’ interests.

Here is another way of eliciting the patterns into a table at a higher level:

Festivals in South America Festivals in China Festivals in AustraliaE.g. ”In the … festival people … They dress in … They like to … . because … “

E.g. ”In the … festival people … They dress in … They like to … . because … “

E.g. ”In the … festival people … They dress in … They like to … . because … “

One of the problems of eliciting language is that you don’t know what they are going to offer you. They might give you text just like you want it, it might be on the subject but doesn’t quite fit the dialogue, or it may be off the subject.

TIP: If they give you language that is ON the subject BUT not what you wanted to elicit/get, you write it in a separate area of the board with a heading “Alternative”.

TIP: If they give you language that is OFF the subject, BUT you don’t want to discount it write it on the left side of the board, with a comment like “That’s good, but has a different meaning/would be used in another context, we can look at that more later.”


Although we have talked a lot about the target language section and it is important, work on getting through this section as fast as possible. Usually with practice teaching classes students are hoping to practise their English as much as possible. They know they need some teaching but want to get into practising as soon as possible. The danger is that you will labour the target language section in endeavouring to teach them really well. So, plan it well and move as swiftly through it as you can. Don’t get caught up explaining everything and by doing so trading away the rest of your lesson time.

DEMONSTRATING ACTIVITIESBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

You will remember in the in-class component we emphasised that you should always model an activity before you ask a student to do it. We demonstrated this many times by pretending to be student A, changing position and then pretending to be student B. This demonstrated exactly to the students what you want them to do, so all that is left in terms of instruction is to say “Go!” If you do not do this it will be slow and cumbersome getting activities going. You will be wondering what has gone wrong, and a student will pipe up with the question “what do you want us to do?” and you will falter with further explanations that confuse students and the pace of the lesson will drop badly. Even in your normal life you know that when you are learning tasks, if you can see an example of someone working through the task, it is so much easier to understand what they want you to do than if it is just explained to you. With ESOL students it is even more difficult for them to understand verbal instructions without a demonstrated example.

It gets even worse if you try and rephrase your instruction. Rephrasing is what you often do with native speakers. When we explain things and the other person doesn’t seem to understand we rephrase – explain it differently and that sometimes solves the misunderstanding. For ESOL students rephrasing is very confusing – don’t do it. When you have problems explaining something go back to demonstrating what you want and or repeat your instructions word for word.

TIP: You might have classroom size limitations for vigorous game activities, so consider this when you are planning game activities.

If you are observing or in an assistant teacher role you will notice a section of the course book/lesson will be focussed on a controlled practice activity. Consider the way that is done and whether you can think of other ways you could do it. Perhaps you will teach this segment and can adapt the way the course book manages controlled activities so that it is more applicable to students.

Another way, or an additional controlled activity, could be to have pre-prepared sets of question and answer cards and run the same sort of activity in teams. In this case you need to set the goal of the activity. In this case the goal is for the question side to collect the answers and the most answers wins. You need to set any rules so in this case the question and answer sides cannot look at the cards of the other side. Get the students seated for the activity, demonstrate the first one and then say, “go”. Don’t forget the take-up at the end. This is just an example of an idea – you come up with your own.

You need to think of how the activity would work. To make it conversational you might have a picture on one side and the information on the other side. There will need to be a rule that the students have to face each other for the activity.

Once an activity is in motion you will facilitate by going around helping them if they make big errors. Don’t interrupt the activity by getting into teaching or discussion during this time. If they ask you questions as you come around the pairs, either answer it quickly or say you will look at it after the activity.

One of the good things you can do during activities is echo correct, where you repeat softly corrected language, straight after you hear the error. The student concerned will repeat what you said. You have to be concentrating on what the students are saying in order to nip in straight after


they have said the error. You want the timing to work as if they were self correcting themselves without cutting off the flow of the dialogue.

GOAL AND RULES OF ACTIVITIES Back to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

When you want students to do an activity you need to be clear what the goal is, so that you can organise it and so that they communicate to achieve the goal. For example, an activity in a restaurant might be to order three courses, an activity for talking about festivals might be to find out three facts about each festival.

You might need a rule. For example if you have an A and B pairwork conversation activity which uses cars with question prompts on one side and facts on the other, you need a rule that the pairs have to sit facing each other.

EXTENDED READING OR WRITING ACTIVITYBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

Generally, to keep your lesson as communicative as possible, DON’T build in extended reading and writing activities to your lessons. However, if you are teaching a class as mentored by a teacher and they want you to do it, do so. Also if you are teaching longer teaching slots such as a 2 hour slot, it will more likely be appropriate to extend the learning with a reading or writing activity. For this lesson, you could have a reading activity from a magazine on festivals or perhaps an online article, that you can copy and past into a Word document with your exercise questions added. For writing you could get students to write an email home to describe an event they have experienced. These are just an example of ideas – you come up with your own.

For more information on these topics, refer to your Course Manual. Reading is Unit 12 and Writing (please pay particular attention to the Evaluating stage) is in Unit 13.

IMAGINE THE LESSONBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

You should have thought about how to demonstrate the activities in the lesson. Go through the lesson from top to bottom working out, if you haven’t already, how you will introduce, elicit, demonstrate, facilitate, and take-up each stage. Know how you will introduce any materials and how many photocopies you should have handy. Doing this will also solve the question of pace - it avoids you getting sidetracked or bogged down in explanations.

Your lesson should achieve its aims by following clear stages, involving communicative methodologies and being interesting for the students.

TWEAK YOUR ACTIVITIES FOR A LISTENING AND SPEAKING EMPHASISBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

You may well have a good lesson staged correctly, suitable target language and a good range of activities, but sometimes trainees still need to do some tweaking to focus activities so they provide for student practice and involvement. By tweaking your activities to maximise listening and speaking you can achieve this. The following examples don’t link as one lesson, but show how you can tweak different activities at different stages of a lesson

Tweaking a warmer


Imagine you have a warmer handout with on-topic discussion questions and lines for students to write answers. To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could re-design your handout into an A and B handout, so handout A has questions 1, 3, 5 and handout B has questions 2, 4, 6. This will require students to listen for the question from their partners before they are able to record answers. You can check answers as a facilitator and in a take-up you can elicit some written answers to the board.

Tweaking Target languageImagine you have a handout of six sentences where students, individually, have to identify a correct grammar form in sentences. Imagine one sentence is “Lucy ____________ sell her car next week.” To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could have question cards, such as “Lucy, what are you planning to do this weekend?” which you ask various students. As they answer, you can consolidate the language by writing the answers on the board.

Tweaking a controlled practiceImagine you have a matching exercise on personality traits matched to things people might say from a personality perspective. You might be planning that they match these in pairs on a table top. To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could require them to do it without showing the matching cards to each other person. In this way they will have to read out what is on their cards to do the match. When they think they have a match they can put their hand up for you to check and if okay, they can then put them on the desk in front of them.

Tweaking a semi-controlled activityImagine you have planned an activity where you want students to work out how to burglar proof a home and you thought of getting them to make notes on pictures you have provided. To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could be the writer with the students making suggestions. You facilitate it by setting the start of the sentence the students offer to the board, such as:“How about …”, ”Why don’t you…”, ”We could …”, ”My suggestion is to …”

Tweaking a free practice activityHave students redo a role play with a slight change in the situation. For example if you had a cocktail activity where students had to collect information of festivals or events students had experienced, you could vary it by getting half the class to perform a festival, while the other half call out what they see happening.


THE WHITEBOARD Back to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

How are you using the White Board? It is good to be organised about where you put things on the board. Remember your students will write down what you put on the board, so if you are organised, their books will also be orderly, for the purposes of revision.

Try this:

WhiteboardWhen you give homework, write it up here, or in another place

Some teachers write the lesson aim here

Target language here. Keep the target language on the board as long as

possible.

ALWAYS give students time to write down target language before you rub it off.

Newvocabulary

here.

Newvocabulary

here.

Other useful language that students question or raise, that is related but would be a distraction to address in the lesson - you might pick up at a later lesson.

An important point is to allow time for students to write down what is on the board before you rub it off. Keep the target language on the board as long as possible.

Every teacher develops their own whiteboard management style. It is beneficial to be consistent with placement so that students can more quickly refer to important information and you don’t unintentionally erase valuable board work.

WEB RESOURCES FOR IDEASBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

Here are a few web based resources for lesson plan ideas. DO NOT just print and use these lessons as they are, but they may be useful for ideas.

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/games1.html - Ice breaker and game ideas.

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/ - Lesson ideas and links to other Teaching Lesson Links

www.onestopenglish.com - see ‘Lesson Share’, ‘Skills – Speaking’ for conversation-based lessons, amongst others. This website is excellent and you should explore it in depth.

http://esl.about.com/bllessonplans.htm - a good list of lessons for different areas

http://iteslj.org/questions/ - numerous questions based around different themes/subjects.

http://www.longman.com/opportunities/teachers/int/index.html - downloadable and photocopiable worksheets based on the new Opportunities series. Obviously, the themes and grammar are comparable with other textbooks at the same level (5 books from Beginner through to Advanced). You need to sign up, although it is free.

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/headway/?cc=global - gives you access to lots of resources to use with Headway books. You need to register but it’s free. Other resources are


http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/games1.html

available on the rest of the site.

PRONUNCIATION WORKBack to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON

For pronunciation work we have suggested you drill the whole dialogue if the class is at a lower level. If it is at a pre-intermediate level to drill four lines and if the level is higher to drill just a few words or phrases.

There are a number of other pronunciation activities that you could also try. On the in-class course you practised tongue twisters and minimal pairs. We also introduced how the placing of sentence stress changed meaning, and we introduced the English phonemic symbols.

Here are some exercise types that practise different aspects of pronunciation. You would not try more than one in any one lesson.

English phonemic symbols are quite difficult to pick up at the beginning but you should keep working on it over time so as to become more proficient. In a lot of modern course books they are used and a phonetic chart is in the back of the book as a reference.

Consonants

You can understand the sounds if you say the words out loud. When you write phonetic script on the board you can put it between // with an example, e.g., /^/ up. If you look at an English dictionary you will see the phonetic symbols ordered to describe the words written between //.


Teaching individual sounds

Minimal pairsTake one pair of sounds where you think or realise the students will have trouble and put together pairs of words where the only sounds that differ are the problematic sounds. Choral drill the words with some individual checking and perhaps incorporate some of the activities demonstrated in the in-class component (e.g.: clapping once for words on the left and twice for those on the right). Practising minimal pairs can help students determine the often minute differences in pronunciation between one word and another.

/I/ /I:/ship sheepill eelhit heatlive leave

As a compromise, if you have to think on your feet and can’t come up with pairs of words, try to think of two lists of words that feature the sounds to be practised.

/I/ /I:/sip sleeptip melip teabit wreath

Weak Forms ( )

The vowel that is used in unstressed syllables most often is the schwa, as in ‘butter’, ‘margarine’, ‘bananas’, ‘lager’). This symbol (the schwa) is always used in unstressed syllables. It is a very weak sound and very common.

To teach the schwa work out where it comes up in a sentence and drill the sentence, with some individual checking:

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?

Teaching consonant clustersOne of the things that native speakers of English take for granted is that they can use consonants singularly or in combination with vowels (eg: catamaran) and also in groups or clusters (eg: sprints). Clusters of two or three consonants are not uncommon and the longest cluster in English consists of four consonant sounds: e.g. texts / t e k s t s/.

Many Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese do not have consonant clusters at all and have a strict combination of consonant + vowel, consonant + vowel, e.g.

ni hau ma? sayonaraCV CV CV CVCVCVCV

So to teach consonant clusters look at where they come up in your target language and do some choral drilling, with some individual checking. For the ones underlined below, notice that when you speak words are joined together.

B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?

To practice say the vowel before and after, then repeat in the word context. Isolating it like this helps the students focus Eg,

ade throu parade throughowntown stre downtown streets.ostu costumes


Teaching linking sounds – Connected SpeechWhen native speakers talk, they generally do not pause between each word, but move smoothly from one word to the next. There are special ways of doing this. For example, consider that “not at all” sounds like one word when you say it “notatall”. Actually it depends on the speed people speak as to how many words they join together.

You can illustrate this on the board with part of a dialogue, as follows:

A: Do_you_know_about the_Brazilian_Carnival?B: Yes, they_parade_through downtown_streets.A: Do_they_wear any_costumes?

I have left some gaps, but if you speak more quickly, you would actually join phrases as one:A: Do_you_know_about_the_Brazilian_Carnival?B: Yes, they_parade_through_downtown_streets.A: Do_they_wear_any_costumes?

A good way to practise is to illustrate it as above and then do some choral drilling, with some individual checking.

Teaching word stressOne of the special features of English is that if we use words of two syllables or more, one of these syllables will stand out more than the other. This is done by saying one syllable slightly louder, holding the vowel a little longer, and pronouncing the consonants very clearly. These features combine to give that syllable prominence or stress.

In ‘table’, ‘isn’t’, and ‘any’, the stress is at the beginning of the word. In ‘photography’ and ‘economics’, the stress is in the middle of the word.In ‘despite’ and ‘compare’, the stress is at the end of the word.

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?

To teach word stress you could underline or put a dot above where the stress is, then do some choral drilling, with some individual checking.

Teaching sentence stressNormally the stress goes on the meaning word, so for:

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.A: Do they wear any costumes?You can imagine saying it in Pigeon EnglishA: know Brazilian Carnival?B: parade downtown.A: wear costumes?

To teach word stress you could put a dot above where the stress is, then do some choral drilling, with some individual checking. Usually the stress can be taught with rhythm, so you can beat the timing with your foot or demonstrate it like a conductor.

In English we stress the important words, which might be different from the Pigeon English approach. You will remember the exercise in the in-class course on the sentence ”I didn’t buy you ten red roses”. The meaning changes, depending on where the stress goes.

Speakers often decide that they want to give more or less prominence to a particular word. A word may be given less weight because it has been said already, or it may be given more weight because the speaker wants to highlight it. So think about this when you decide where the stress goes and relate it to teaching about meaning.


Teaching intonationSentence stress and intonation work together to help speakers send the precise message they want to send. Intonation is concerned with the way the voice changes pitch when we make utterances. It is useful to teach how this happens at the end of a statement.

Her name's Ann This falling tone denotes a simple matter of fact statement

Her name's Ann? A rising tone has more meanings. It is usual for a question, but also can indicate uncertainty surprise and disbelief or that he/she hasn't heard the first time and wishes for a repetition.

Really? The fall-rise tone is often used to express reservation or suspicion.

Teaching body languageYou can also think about how body language gives expression and meaning to what we say and teach students to use body language at points in a dialogue – open hands for questions, raised eyebrows for surprise. Cultures vary in body language expressiveness, such as the difference between Japanese and South American students. Since culture is part of language people will interpret non expressiveness as unfriendly or uninterested, so it is a good thing to build into your quiver of pronunciation exercises.

You will find that chipping away on pronunciation will over time lead to students that sound far more natural than otherwise.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

As well as the checklist at the end of the first section here are some others that you should be able to tick off:

I am clear that I am teaching the communicative use of English, not any topic, which is peripheral learning. I am not going to labour the Target language section. I have considered the tips and discussion in this document to the extent that they will be in the back of my mind, during the lesson. I am clear that I can be confident to keep the pace of the lesson going, even though I might have to go against my feelings to explain everything so they all understand. I can envisage how I am going to model each activity before I ask the students to do it. I am clear about goals and rules of activities and games. I am clear where I am going to write things on the whiteboard. I have worked in a few pronunciation activities into my lessons. I realise that in spite of my best efforts to prepare my lesson that in the actual lesson I may need to adapt how I am doing it, and I have given myself permission for that situation. I feel enthusiastic about the topic. I feel enthusiastic about meeting the students and understand that they will be interested in meeting me as a person.
