Lesson plan Unit 4

This lesson plan had been designed for the Newcomers in a government funded school, intermediate level classroom in Winnipeg. Their main goal is to be comfortable with grammar. This class mainly occurs on Mondays and Wednesdays the timings for this class are from 7-9 pm (2 hrs long).

This plan particularly is based on the task-based method. This plan will be focused on the students writing and speaking skills.

Resources- a picture of themselves from 10 years ago, Pen and paper.

Overview- Everyone gets their photograph from 10 years ago and they look at the differences in themselves from than to now.

Than everyone writes a short paper on themselves on how they were before and how they are now including differences from than to now and things which stayed the same from than to now. Than they will share this short paper about them with the whole class or in groups of two this way they are able to SPEAK comfortably in front of the class.

Prepare a written instruction of this activity beforehand for the class distribution.

Warm-up activity

First the teacher can put up a picture of them self and ask the students what differences they notice in you from 10 years ago to now, don’t correct them just yet though. Let students allow to have a short discussion as well if they want. (15 minutes)

Activity

Tell students to work in a short group of 3 or 4. Ask them to discuss and write down their differences from 10 years to now and also put some major questions on the board which they would have to answer on a piece of paper.

·         How did you look like before?

·         Are you any different now, if so than how?

·         Did your hobbies change from than to now?

These questions will get students started in group conversation, tell the students think about these questions discuss it with their group in the mean time teacher can circulate around and listen to their conversation but do not correct them just yet. (15 minutes)

Tell students to stop after 10-15 minutes inform them to write down their discussion points into a short group summery they must work together on this as a group. Tell students to be prepared to present this summery orally to the class. (20 minutes)

When students are ready inform one spokesperson from each of the group to stand up and present their group summery to the class. Tell the rest of the class to listen to each of the group summery very carefully and decide at end of all group summery that who has changed the most over 10 years of time-period. Whoever that would be tell them to show their picture or say how they are so different now. (20 minutes)

Put your photo back of the board and inform the students that you will be doing the same activity and telling them how you have changed from than to now and ask the students some questions like what did I say about my hair, what did I say about my glasses and so on. And if they find it hard to understand than read the text again. (15 minutes)

Than choose 2-3 points from your description from than to now and add used-to to it, so like

I used to wear glasses than.

I used to have black long hair back than.

I didn’t used to do my homework.

Check students understanding on each of these sentences. (15 minutes)

Explain where we use used-to in English. Tell them that in English language we use used-to when describing their past habits or so.

Than lastly, write some used-to sentences on board and tell students to write a few hobbies of them which they used-to have once they are all done than tell students to check their sentences with one another. (20 minutes)

Unit 4 aha

My aha moment was from this video Grammar Lesson Planning Tutorial for Teaching English as a Foreign Language from unit 4. I felt that using real life examples to teach to the students and also by making them write about their experiences would be a great and a fun way to teach grammar to the students. I really do think that learning experience is much more effective if it is taught in more of a fun and engaging way, this way students rarely do loose any interest in their learning process.

Unit 3 aha

My aha moment for unit 3 would have to the quiz question no 5 "The teacher should be selective when correcting mistakes" where I thought the answer for this one should be true but in certain cases. Sometimes it is good be selective but the answer was false and I can see why it was false because despite those few times as a teacher it is good to correct the mistakes as a whole rather than being selective that a teacher can see where the student struggles and more so focus on the big problem areas rather than small mistakes.

Unit 2 aha

My aha moment for unit 2 was that reading about so many types of grammar methodologies, which I was very fascinated about because I didn't even know that there are so many of these methodologies. The one which I found the most interesting among all would have to be the audio lingual method (despite the fact that the teacher is central in this type) because it really focuses on listening the language very extensively and eventually students get the hold of it and than students learn to write it, so really its focuses or improves students listening habits and at the same time they also learn the language this way.

Unit 2 activity

For new immigrants to Canada beginner level.
Inductive style
Firstly, read the paper which consists a little conversation between 2 people and then practice that conversation by talking to a partner and writing it on a worksheet.

A- which do you, prefer USA or Canada.
B- I am from Canada, so I prefer Canada over USA.
A- Canada is also bigger than USA in terms of area.
B- yes that's true USA is smaller than Canada in area.

Fill in the sheet with comparative adjectives add an er.
big turns to bigger.
small turns to
deep turns to
clean turns to

English needs assessment

Click on the link

https://www.slideshare.net/teacheryamith/needs-assessment-samples

TESL 0110

Grammar is so important in a language that without it we cannot even make an sentence. I thought I was decent in grammar but turns out I still have a lot to learn about it.
My aha moment was from the does grammar matter video. The concept of prescriptivism and descriptivism caught my attention, because I didn't know about these concepts before. So, prescriptivism is where they think the language should follow the same way it has been used since the olden times whereas descriptivism is opposite in which they like to add new things and adaptations to a language. Language is something that is constantly changing all around the world, I think the descriptivism is better than prescriptivism because it allows you to customize it. I personally think that descriptivism is a non-judgemental approach to language which is more focused on how its spoken and written by others. Here is a link, which has some more information about prescriptivism and descriptivism.
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/descriptivism-vs-prescriptivism-war-is-over-if-you-want-it/

Assignment 4

Age- adults

Level-beginner

Length-up to an hour 

Focus- comparing,reading, writing and speaking 

Start by drawing some characters on the board like small,tall, big, fat etc. Give them names then hand out the sheet of paper which has some characteristics of those people on the board and then call upon students to get those characters compared like John is taller then Sam by using that sheet.

Then once everyone (most of them) has gotten a turn hand to write on the board then hand out one fill in the blank sheet to everyone and get everyone to write about the characters on the board.

Like
John is              than Sam.
Sam is               than Bob.
So on...

Resources

https://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/lesson-plans/level-beginner.html

http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/briefs/multilevel.pdf

Course overview

I had really enjoyed taking this course as a whole. I thought that this course was very knowledgeable and interesting as I want to be an ESL teacher in future. I liked the assignments particularly, in that way we get to know or understand other interesting ways to do things, which I could have never imagined to think in that way (get to know others perspective). I really enjoyed the readings as well although I found some of the reading contents kind of confusing I guess that's greatly because I have never taught anyone anything yet.

Sadly enough I did miss the live sessions that's why I would say that was the only part of the course which I didn't like that much, because of the timings and also because I am taking four other in class courses as well and this is also my first time taking a TESL course so I didn't know much about these courses and how they work.

Assignment 3 group project

Assignment 3

Overview & background knowledge- This person is a middle age man who has a strong background in Hindi language which reflects in his speaking manner (the strong accent). He is good at making sentences and he knows what exactly he is talking about and he is a very confident speaker as well. Although his main problem is his weak presentation and delivery skills. He lacks proper enunciation while speaking which affects the clarity of his voice and the ability of others to understand him. This student would definitely benefit from correct pronunciation exercises

Speaking level- English high intermediate (fluent in Hindi). Has a very strong accent in his way of speaking.

Objective: Improving pronunciation by Active Listening Skills. This would improve the student’s fluency and fluidity in oral aspects of the language without breaking up the speech, and help focus on syllables, r sounds, t sounds, etc.

Time: 15 minutes

Activity Outline:

Improving pronunciation through focus on stress and intonation is one of the best ways to improve higher intermediate to advanced level English learners. At this level, students have a good grasp on the basics of each phoneme using exercises such as minimal pairs, and individual syllable stress. However, English learners at this level often focus too much on correct pronunciation of each word, rather than on the music of each sentence. To introduce the concept of stress and intonation and the role it plays in understanding, the students first need to understand the role of content and function words. Use this lesson on practicing stress and intonation to help. Next, students should learn how to use sound scripting - a way of marking up texts to help prepare for reading aloud. Finally, high intermediate level students should be capable of changing meaning through word stresses within sentences to bring out contextual meaning through pronunciation.

Benefit:

Since the student is a high intermediate level speaker, the normal speed would not hinder them and would allow them to concentrate on areas that they lack such as proper grammar, pronunciation of syllables, and hearing skills.

Some of the words that a student says that are syllabically incorrect

Some other problems with Hindi speakers and their pronunciation that we have noticed is the incorrect pronunciation of “V”, R and “W” sounds.

For example, in the audio some of the other words that he incorrectly pronounces are: Career (Care-yeer), tourism (Tour-eesm), travel (tra-wel), benefits (ban-ifits), target (tar-gate).

A script we thought would be helpful to correct another pronunciation problem which is the harsh “R’” sounds, is as follows:

R- /r/

teacher- today we will learn how to make the /r/ sounds. So lets get started, try to repeat after me (showing the mouth expressions) To make the r sound you only use your tongue and lips, tongue has to be in the middle of the mouth and tip should not touch anything.

student- am I doing it right (trilled r sound)

teacher- not quite you are still touching the tip of your tongue. Demonstrate the r sound again.

student- is it better now

teacher- yes much better. Now let’s try it out with some easy words. Run so tip of the tongue should not touch anything and it should sound like one.

student- repeats (sounds like one).

teacher- awesome you have got the hang of it.

Corrective feedback

Checking on the students for their correct pronunciation skills or their correct mouth expressions so that they pronounce the words in a better or improved way.

Helpful resources:

• http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/hindi.htm

• http://busyteacher.org/14916-improve-esl-pronunciation-6-fun-exercises.html 

• Harmer, J. (2001). Chapter 13: Teaching Pronunciation. In Harmer, J. (Ed.). The practice of English language teaching (pp. 188). Essex, England: Longman.

 

Unit-3 Listening activity

Level- intermediate

Duration-15 mins 

The phone rings and Darren answers it. Listen as Darren talks to the lady on the phone and his wife who is in the bathtub. Read or play the script then hand out the quiz to everyone and when done go over the quiz with students.

Darren: Carol... telephone...

Carol: Who is it?

Darren: I don't know. Wait a sec... (to the person on the phone) May I ask who's calling, please? (pause) Carol... it's Susan.

Carol: Oh, I'm in the bathtub. Can you ask her if it's important?

Darren: Sorry Susan, Carol can't come to the phone right now. Is there something I can help you with? (pause) Oh, I see. (to Carol) Carol... she wants to know if the party is tonight or tomorrow night.

Carol: Tell her it's tomorrow night at 8:00 at Jill's house. Tell her to bring a dessert if she wants.

Darren: (to Susan) She said it's tomorrow night at 8:00 at Jill's house. She said you could bring a dessert if you want. (pause) Sure, no problem. Have a good evening. 'Bye.

Things to know...

Get the phone = answer the phone.
Wait a sec = wait a second. Another way to tell someone to wait.
(Someone) can't come to the phone right now. This is a polite way to tell someone the person they would like to talk is busy. It would be a little rude or embarrassing to say someone is in the bathroom (unless it's a very close friend.)
Tell her to bring a dessert. Often when there is a party, people bring food to share.

  Who answers the telephone?

a. Darren
b. Carol
c. Susan

2. Where is Carol?

a. at work
b. in the kitchen
c. in the bathroom

3. What is a polite way to say someone can't talk?

a. Carol is in the bathtub.
b. Carol doesn't want to talk to you.
c. Carol can't come to the phone right now.

4. When is the party?

a. tonight
b. tomorrow night
c. 7:00

5. At the end of the conversation, Darren says "Sure, no problem.*" What do you think Susan said before that?

a. Thanks for your help.
b. I will bring a dessert.
c. Where is Carol right now?

Answers- A,C,C,B,A

Unit-3 Reflection

After reading all the Unit 3 readings, the reading which I found the most interesting was 'How to Teach Listening' by J.J Wilson. Specially the paragraph on 'while listening in class, students shouldn't try to understand every word' my thoughts on this were slightly different, I think that students should always pay attention to everything (or most of the things) if possible. I think listening comes in handy when learning really anything, it is a very good skill to have and people who don't have this skill should for sure look into it.

But again everyone is different and has different ways to learn which works for them, people who are good with listening skills would for sure benefit from listening to the words/phrases carefully. People who are not good at this particular listening skill thing they can try to listen to the phrases carefully by keeping all the distractions away (phone, laptops etc) which would for sure benefit them.

References and useful links

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCNjahCAMOU
• https://www.eslgamesplus.com/classroom-games/
• Wilson, J. J. (2008). How to teach listening (pp. 21-24). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

'aha' moments

Unit 1 

I thought how to teach speaking by Thornbury.S was a very intertesing reading as whole. But the 'aha' moment for me was the speech condition. We often don't realize but speech condition can make a huge difference in one's performance. If you are giving a speech between the known people of yours I think you can do much better (in terms of fear factor) and I would feel more comfortable as well around that particular group than giving speech between unknown group of people which can make you nervous or uncomfortable in such kinds of settings. Any other thoughts on that??

Unit 2

In Harmer.J's reading my 'aha' moment was the passage about 'working with stress' because stress is important is words, phrases or sentences. It can be surprising, how focusing on the "stress - timed" quality of English helps students improve their pronunciation skills. I think one way to improve ESL students word stress problem would be - 

By taking a look at certain sentences and then clicking on the audio symbol to listen to the examples showing the difference between the sentences spoken. First listen to the words/sentences and than try pronouncing it. This way they can improve their pronunciation as well.

Unit-2 corrective feedback

R- /r/
teacher- today we will learn how to make the /r/ sounds. So lets get started, try to repeat after me (showing the mouth expressions) To make the r sound you only use your tongue and lips, tongue has to be in the middle of the mouth and tip should not touch anything.

student- am I doing it right (trilled r sound)

teacher- not quite you are still touching the tip of your tongue. Demonstrate the r sound again.

student- is it better now

teacher- yes much better. Now lets try it out with some easy words. Run so tip of the tongue should not touch anything and it should sound like one.

student- repeats (sounds like one).

teacher- awesome you have got the hang of it.

Reply to Thread

Unit 2 reflection

Self-Monitoring and Correcting Pronunciation

By reading chapter 2 I've came to a conclusion that learning an language and specially English is not always a piece of cake for everyone. Because English language is a very complex language to learn and specially if that person has no prior knowledge about it at all. For  most of the ESL students their main goal is to speak English fluently and understanding the language. Now I think for that to happen self-monitoring and correcting are two of the most important factors which come in play.

Pronunciation is a big factor when leaning any language in this case English, but everyone is different and they have different needs and teachers are restricted to do only so much because they can't give attention to every single student in detail and find out there weak and strong points. So I think teachers should prepare all the students well enough that they are able to recognize there own mistakes and able to solve them (and if they need any help in this process then teachers can help them out). By doing this not only they would understand and learn the language effectively but also remember it longer as well. And students can also take help or suggestions from there peers as well, which would make their communication skills better and they would get to know one another. So I think teachers should pay more attention towards developing students self-monitoring skills and also the correcting skills. 

                                                        

TESL 0120: Unit 2 Pronunciation Activity

What you can learn: It’s important to know the right pronunciation of a word, but just knowing how to make the different vowel sounds can help you speak correctly.

This pronunciation activity (vowel sounds) is based on the speaking sample A. 

Things needed- children songs or youtube videos.

There are a number of children’s songs that help teach different vowels. Listen to and try to sing along with songs. These songs, and others like them, change the vowel sounds in words. This results in many nonsense words, like “benene” instead of “banana.” This is an effective method to learn vowel sounds because the rest of the word doesn’t change—so you can focus on the vowel sounds instead. First only listen to the song and then try to repeat the words or the vowels with the song.

Learning vowel sounds and pronunciations will make it easier for you to learn new English words. Take some time to practice and learn with these exercises and you’ll be having fun and learning at the same time.

TESL 0120 unit 1

Speaking activity 

Speaking activity for intermidiate and advanced level.

Class time:30 mins

No of people- groups of 2

Activity- Teaching a class is a fun way for ESL students to learn. In this activity, assign each pair a grammar, vocab or culture point that they’ll have to teach to the class. The pair works together to prepare activities and lesson plans and teaches the point to the class.
Best way to learn something is to tell or teach it to others. Which works in this case.
When the pair teaches the class, the teacher can play the role of a student, but you must pay a close attention and correct them afterwards.

Verbal coorective feedback
TESL 0120
Unit 1

Echoing
Teacher- so tell me how many times do you go to the in a week?
Student- I like to go park 2 times a week.
Teacher- 2 times a week or couple times a week?
Student-couple times a week.
Teacher- very well done.

Statement and question
Teacher- so tell me how many times do you go to the park in a week?
Student- I like to go park 2 times a week.
Teacher- are you sure about that?
Student- twice a week I meant.
Teacher- good.

Reformulation
Teacher- so tell me how many times do you go to the in a week?
Student- I like to go park twice a week.
Teacher- very well done.