8. Receptive Skills Lesson Create Interest Pre Skills Task Gist Skill Task Main Skill Task Follow Up Language Lesson Create Interest Language in Use (Either testing the students’ knowledge or seeing the language in context.) Language Analysis Controlled Practice Freer Practice. Lesson 1: A skills lesson – To give the students practice in listening for gist and specific information Lesson 2: A language lesson – To review and extend the students’ knowledge of the 3rd conditional and give them practice in the structure
Hinweis der Redaktion
This session aims to provide a review session for teachers. It looks at the basic principles of lesson planning with the aim of reminding teachers what they need to consider when planning a lesson. It looks at the overall factors involved then at the general framework for a skills and language lesson before drawing everything together by looking at a sample lesson plan.
Aim: To introduce the idea of aims, outcomes and procedures. 1. Opening discussion. Get participants to discuss why we do the things on the list, how we do them and what the outcome of doing each activity is. Put the participants into pairs and let them discuss 1 to 4 for 5 minutes This allows participants to consider the difference between aims and outcomes and to think about the process that links the aims to the outcomes. The outcome is an achievement but the outcome is not always our aim. E.g. a football match, we might aim to win the game, but if you support a mid-table football team you’ll know the aim is not always achieved. How do we do them? The point here is that there are steps / instructions to take or follow and, in order to turn our aims into successful outcomes we need to have a good idea of what those steps are before we start. The wrong steps will lead to the wrong item, however, we do not need to stick to these steps rigidly; cooking a meal is an example where you might differ from the prescribed recipe.
In the same groups discuss the same points again for no. 5 - why do we do it, how do we do it and what are our outcomes? This brings the analogy back to teaching and learning. The answers should be that our aim is to help our students learn English, (usually a specific language point or skill) the outcome is that our students will have learnt something and finally to get from one to the other we need logical steps or stages that have been clearly thought through. Cooking provides another analogy, sometimes despite having an idea of what we want (an aim) and following the recipe (the procedure) the finished article (the outcome) is not how we envisaged. Teachers need to be aware that teaching lessons can turn out like this and need to be able to reflect on plans in order to work out what caused the problems.
Aim: To explore all the factors that a teacher has to consider when planning a lesson The slide is blank to allow thinking time for the brainstorm. In groups brainstorm all the things you need to consider when planning a lesson. This should be both pre-lesson thoughts and in-lesson procedures. To do feedback move to the next slide and ask participants to compare their answers to ours. Allow them time to discuss any they didn’t, give them a chance to ask any questions. This should help participants appreciate that lesson planning is not just what you write down on paper but also considerations about the students, the teacher, the environment and the materials.
1.The participants may have others ideas that can be added to this. 2. Build on this list by asking participants in groups to regroup the ideas on the slide into two groups; preliminary information, (the background information of the class) and procedure information, (the information about that particular lesson). This allows participants to consider the pre lesson thoughts and the in-lesson procedures. The list has been divided on the next slide.
Show the slide and ask if participants agree. Deal with any questions then move on to stage 3. Stage 3: To raise awareness of the core stages of a skills and language lesson by ordering model plans 1.Ask the participants to consider the main stages they would generally expect to see in listening and grammar lessons. Get some ideas and write them on the board. The basic staging is on the next slide. It tests the participants’ knowledge of lesson procedure and gets them to consider the typical stages we would have in different lesson types. It also brings into consideration the type of anticipated problems students might have in those lessons.
1. Discuss the two lesson shapes, w hether we are using any of the following models. Authentic use, Restricted use, Clarification (ARC), Engage, Study, Activate (ESA) Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) Test, teach, test (TTT) Visual, audio, kinaesthetic (VAK) Whether we are following a particular model or not we still tend to do things in similar ways in the classroom. We still need to create interest; we still need a language analysis stage etc. This activity gets participants to think about those generic stages we need in language and skills lessons. 2. Follow this up by drawing their attention to the lesson aim and asking the participants what assumptions the teacher is making about the students and the lesson. Receptive skills lesson aims are generally similar (this will be looked at in more detail in another session) and it helps the teacher if they state explicitly what sub skill they are working on e.g. gist for receptive skills, fluency for speaking and so on. In lesson two, the language lesson, the teacher is making the assumption that the students have been taught this conditional before, hence the word review and will have some ability to use it. (Consider the difference with an aim that is ‘to present’ – this often suggest it’s the first time the students have seen it and the procedure will reflect that with the teacher probably presenting the language in use). The teacher also assumes that the students have knowledge of the 1 st and 2 nd conditionals.