Teaching Portfolio

April 27, 2015

Background: Providing Context for the Lesson Plans

A. Description of program. Education First is an English language school located at EF that uses the Efekta System which is a 6-stage English course aligned to the Common European Framework, and takes learners from Beginner (A1) to Upper Advanced (C2) level. This program is a General English program whose goals are to promote deeper language awareness and real-world use of the language*.

B. Description of students. The students are in the upper-beginning level meaning they can converse easily regarding everyday matters, and have limited range of style. They are highly motivated and diverse group from all of over the world who want to learn English in order to communicate in the real world. Some may take a international language exam. Most of them have previously studied English in their country of origin and they are all over the age of 25.

C. Description of course. This course is a multi skills course with an emphasis on using language to communicate in authentic contexts*. Students choose their start and end date so the class size fluctuates between 6 and 18. The class meets three times a week with two 80 minute classes. Twice they are in a room with a whiteboard, and once in a computer lab with a projector. These lessons focus on level B1.1 and a little of level B1.2. By the end of this course students should be able to understand the main points of clear standard speech, understand texts that consist of high frequency language and descriptions, communicate needs when traveling, giving opinions, and tell stories, write simple connected text and personal letters*.

D. Description and overall goal of the unit. Eight lessons were created each based on a different topic of the week. The required textbooks are Efekta General English A2.3, B1.1, and B1.2, which are textbooks with a content and communication focus. The textbooks are Task-Based, so each lesson contains a small communicative task and each unit ends with a larger one.

E. Recent work. The class was going through lessons in previous levels before I arrived. They are required to take a short exam each week**.

*Adapted from EF Textbooks

**Did not get the chance to observe