The work I feel proud of

By: Pamela Erices Terán

Career: English Pedagogy

Subject: English as a Foreign Language Methodology

Teachers: Gabriela Sanhueza, Theresa St John

Section: 2

December, 17^th 2018

Contents

1. Assignment aim 2
2. Teaching context 2
3. Lesson 1 3
   1. Aim 3
   2. Lesson plan chart 3
   3. Detailed explanation 4
4. Lesson 2 5
   1. Aim 5
   2. Lesson plan chart 5
   3. Detailed explanation 6
5. Lesson 3 7
   1. Aim 7
   2. Lesson plan chart 7
   3. Detailed explanation 9
6. Discussion of pedagogical decisions 10
   1. Summary of teacher’s decisions chart 10
   2. Rejected activities justification 10
   3. Adapted activities justification 11
7. Conclusion 11
8. References 12
9. Appendices 13

Assignment aim

This work will mainly focus on how I, as a future teacher, will choose the activities for a one-hour lesson. By using the book of McGrath, I will select, adapt or reject activities by thinking on the appropriate learning of the students. This work will show my capacities of distribution, creativity and management of each lesson (which there will be three) as my decision-making. I will make use of all the resources that I believe could be useful for learners to get the topics faster and easy-understanding.

Teaching context

The context of my lessons will be used for 1st-year university students of English Pedagogy at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción. The course in which the lessons will be imparted is English Communicative Competence Initial Level II. The whole content will be divided into three lessons (or three modules) of one hour each in different days. This lessons will be taught with a PPP model (presentation, practice, production), by adding a lead-in stage at the beginning of each class, which will be used as warm-up activities.

The specific students that I will plan my class for is a group of 32 students, where the media of attendance is 15-20 students per class. Therefore, for my lessons, I will use different spaces of Tomás Moro’s building (Language’s faculty), as the laboratory that has 30 computers, a whiteboard and a projector, and I will also use a spaced classroom with 35-40 chairs, a whiteboard and a projector for the dynamic lesson.

Lesson 1

Aim: By the end of the lesson students will be able to write a physical description of their friends about their height and age.

Stage (brief description)

Objective

Procedure

Interaction

Aids

Time (minutes)

Lead-in

To exemplify a physical description (of mine)

Listen to vocabulary of physical description

T

Teacher talks (listening)

5 minutes

Presentation

How to physically describe the height and age.

Introduce 3 images of different people for SS to compare it

T

Powerpoint

Computer

Projector

10 minutes

Practice

Practice how to physically describe by using new vocab about age and height

Complete the exercises, describing people on the images as the example given

T-SS

Worksheet

25 minutes

Production

Describe a friend by using the form learned

Write a paragraph of 5 friend’s physical description

SS-SS

Computers

20 minutes

Detailed explanation:

• Lead-in (5 minutes):

Teacher will physically describe herself by using all the pertinent vocabulary (height, age, hair, eyes, clothes).

• Presentation stage (10 minutes):

Teacher will present the content of the class with a Powerpoint. The class will be focus on height and age, by given students vocabulary to learn and practice in the next stage.

• Practice stage (25 minutes):

By using a worksheet (appendix n°1), students will be asked to complete the exercises and physically describe 3 people of each images as in the example.

• Production stage (20 minutes):

By using the computers of Laboratory n°2, students will write a paragraph in a Word document of 5 friends’ physically description, explaining in detail their characteristics and using the new vocabulary acquired on this class. By the end of the lesson, the paragraph needs to be send to the teacher’s e-mail (perices@emingles.ucsc.cl), so that the teacher can give them feedback next class.

Lesson 2

Aim: By the end of the lesson students will be able to compare their friends’ face, eyes and hair, orally.

Stage (brief description)

Objective

Procedure

Interaction

Aids

Time (minutes)

Lead-in

To activate vocabulary

Warm-up activity (type of face test)

T-SS

Computer

Projector

Youtube

5 minutes

Presentation

To difference types of hairstyles, faces and eyes

Teacher introduces the same 3 people of last class and explain their differences

T

Powerpoint

Computer

Projector

10 minutes

Practice

Compare famous people on Instagram social media

Searching on TV section of Instagram, SS compare 4 famous people focusing on their eyes, hair and type of face

T-SS

SS-SS

Cellphones

Instagram app

25 minutes

Production

SS compare their friends/classmates

By recording, SS record themselves comparing 2 of their classmates’ physical descriptions

SS-SS

Computer

Speakers

20 minutes

Detailed explanation:

• Lead-in (5 minutes):

As a lead-in, students will be able to do a warm-up activity, by using the computers of Laboratory n°1 to play a type of faces’ test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiaIZtjtZT8), so that they will be able to activate some vocabulary and also previous knowledge.

• Presentation stage (10 minutes):

On this stage, the teacher will introduce others characteristics of physical description as for eyes, type of face and type of hair/hairstyles. The teacher will show the same 3 people of examples shown in the last class, and it will ask students to recognize their physical description given on the last class, but adding new information/ vocabulary as their eyes (shape, colour), type of faces and hair.

• Practice stage (25 minutes):

In this part, students will be asked to use their cell phones and download Instagram app (https://www.instagram.com/?hl=es-la). Then, they will be asked to look for famous people (4-5) and compare them by using the physical description knowledge learned from the two lessons (comparing type of face, of hair, eyes, age, and height).

• Production stage (20 minutes):

Students will be asked to record themselves (by using the computers and speakers of Laboratory n°1), comparing 2 of their classmates in all the characters seen in classes. Then, they will be asked to send the recordings to the teacher email, which will be revised and the teacher will bring feedback for students to improve their speaking skills.

Lesson 3

Aim: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to write a complete physical description of people that teacher will show.

Stage (brief description)

Objective

Procedure

Interaction

Aids

Time (minutes)

Lead-in

To activate background knowledge

T ask SS to describe the examples shown in the projector

T-SS

Powerpoint

Computer

Projector

5 minutes

Presentation

To present the order of a physical description

Introduce the order of a physical description (adding clothes vocabulary) by given 5 examples of different students, at the moment

T

Powerpoint

Computer

Projector

15 minutes

Practice

SS are able to know how to differentiate and use adjectives of clothes and the correct order of physical descriptions

Match adjectives of clothes, order physical descriptions

T-SS

SS-SS

Worksheet

20 minutes

Production

SS are able to create a full physical description of people

A folder on Drive will be created for students to write a full physical description of people by using all the new vocabulary of the latest three lessons

SS-SS

Computers

20 minutes

Detailed explanation:

• Lead-in (5 minutes):

Teacher will present some examples of different kind of people in the projector, where students will be in charge of describe them. This activity will activate previous knowledge.

• Presentation stage (15 minutes):

Teacher will introduce the order of a physical description, but adding clothes vocabulary. S/he will do this activity by given 5 examples of different students that are present at the moment (random selection).

• Practice stage (20 minutes):

Students will be asked to complete a worksheet of exercises about clothes vocabulary (matching the adjectives with the correct definitions) and using the correct order for physical descriptions given in the example.

• Production stage (20 minutes):

In the Laboratory n°1, students will be asked to create a full description for 4-5 people that they have chosen by using the content learned in all the three lessons. They will be asked to work their writing on the folder created on Drive, where the teacher will be monitoring them, so that will be giving feedback at the moment.

Discussion of pedagogical decisions

Lesson

Select

Reject

Adapt

Supplement

One

2

3

-

1

• Lead-in
• Worksheet
• Images of people

Two

5

6

-

4

• Lead-in
• Warm-up
• Youtube video
• Instagram app

Three

7

Reading

Writing

• Lead-in
• Worksheet
• Drive

• Rejected activities:

• Reading activity:

I decided do not use this activity due to the content on this activity was added-taught on lesson 1.

• Adapted activities:

• Activity 1:

The image proposed for the activity was change for images of three people with different physical characteristics, so that students were able to compare and learned about the different types of physical description - characteristics that people have.

• Activity 4:

The questions proposed for this activities will be covered in the Youtube video as a test, so there is no need that students answer them explicitly.

• Writing activity:

This activity will be change of context. Instead of write about a thief, students will be asked to write about 4-5 people that the will choose, by making a complete description of each, using all the knowledge and content learned so far on the three lessons.

• Supplemented resources will be shown in Appendices section.

Conclusion

To sum up, the nine activities proposed by McGrath on his book were not all of them accepted. Nevertheless, I chose to adapt the most of them according to different contexts as the social impact, students’ English language level, their age, their previous knowledge, their length capacity and also strategies of mine that could be better for me to teach it.

In this work, I was given an approach to how can I adapt the materials to make classes dynamic and didactic, trying to focus students’ engagement. I learned how to use different kinds of resources as by using worksheets, online pages. I also learned how to use real experiences as a lead-in for my classes. I tried to activate background knowledge for students to understand in a better form what the class will be about.

About the difficulties of the decision-making, I would say that it is hard to find out the time that students will need to complete each activity, given the circumstances that on this group, in particular, not all of them have the same English Language level. Another situations that was complicated to me, was to choose how to sort out the activities, as if I should use them without changing a thing, choose them but adapting it in the context or rejecting, which was where I tried do not reject more than two, to distribute the others seven activities in the three lessons.

References

• McGrath, I. (2002) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching (pp. 80 - 102). Scotland: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.

Appendices

1. Lesson 1: Images of 3 different kind of people (lead-in stage)