Key approaches/methods adopted in your lesson plans: 

1. CLT(Communicative Language Teaching)

2. CBLT(Competency-Based Language Teaching)

Lesson topics covered:

Travel english

Lesson1

• At the airport

• On the plane

Lesson2

• Hotel

Lesson3

• At the restaurant

In my lesson plan design, I used two teaching methods: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT). The overall theme of my three lessons revolves around “Travel English” because my student is going to travel to America this summer. Since she lacks opportunities to practice speaking English, I mainly focused on developing her speaking skills and comprehension in real travel situations. While CBLT provided the overall learning goals and competencies needed for travel situations, CLT guided the interaction and communicative activities used to develop those competencies.

Firstly, I used CBLT to improve the student’s communicative skills so that she could cope with real-world situations rather than merely memorize grammar rules. CBLT focuses on the competencies learners need to successfully perform specific tasks in everyday life. Therefore, the lessons were designed around practical travel situations that the student might encounter during her trip. I taught vocabulary and commonly used sentence patterns related to the airport, airplane, hotel, and restaurant. For example, students learned how to ask for directions, inquire about departure times, and answer check-in questions at the airport; ask for information and assistance on the plane; check into a hotel, ask questions about hotel facilities, and make reservations; as well as order food and express preferences in a restaurant. Since CBLT is often associated with survival-oriented language programs for adults, it was particularly suitable for my student, who is a university student preparing to travel independently. According to CBLT, competencies are typically derived from real-life situations that learners are likely to encounter. Therefore, I designed survival-oriented travel tasks to help the student develop practical communication skills that can be directly applied in a new environment.

Secondly, I incorporated Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) into my lessons. CLT views language as a tool for meaningful communication rather than simply a set of grammatical rules to be mastered. As a result, classroom activities should provide opportunities for authentic interaction and meaningful language use. After introducing vocabulary, I asked the student to repeat the words and practice commonly used sentence patterns. I then engaged her in casual conversations related to the vocabulary topic in order to encourage spontaneous language production.

To create opportunities for meaningful communication, I designed a variety of role-play activities. For example, I acted as an airport staff member while the student played the role of a traveler checking in. In another activity, I acted as a flight attendant while the student asked questions about the flight. Similarly, I played the role of a hotel receptionist while the student checked into a hotel and responded to different travel-related situations. In restaurant activities, I acted as a waiter while the student ordered food and communicated her preferences. These activities reflected CLT principles because they required the student to use English to negotiate meaning and complete realistic communicative tasks.

In CLT, fluency and successful communication are often prioritized over grammatical accuracy during speaking activities. Therefore, when engaging in role plays and conversations, I did not immediately correct every grammatical error. As long as the student was able to communicate her ideas clearly, I allowed the conversation to continue in order to maintain communicative flow and build confidence. Although CLT does include the use of dialogues, I provided dialogue models mainly as scaffolding to support the student’s learning. However, during the lesson I realized that I had provided too much scaffolding because the student’s proficiency level was higher than I had anticipated. As a result, some of the dialogue practice limited opportunities for spontaneous communication. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would reduce the amount of scripted dialogue and include more open-ended speaking tasks.

To assess the student’s understanding, I did not rely on written tests. Instead, I used speaking-based assessment activities. For example, I asked the student to become the teacher and explain or teach the target language back to me. This allowed me to evaluate her understanding while maintaining a communicative learning environment.

In conclusion, I used both CLT and CBLT to create opportunities for the student to communicate in English while addressing her real-life travel needs. CBLT helped establish practical learning goals based on travel-related competencies, while CLT provided meaningful opportunities for communication and language practice. Through this teaching experience, I learned that both approaches require flexibility and adaptation to the learner’s proficiency level. Although I originally designed the lesson to last approximately 50 minutes, the actual lesson lasted only 30 minutes because the student progressed through the activities more quickly than expected. Therefore, in future lessons I would prepare additional extension activities and gather more information about the student’s proficiency level beforehand. This would allow me to better adjust the amount of scaffolding and provide more appropriate learning opportunities based on the student’s needs.

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