Overview of the lesson
The lesson topic is ‘discovery Hong Kong’ that is information and advice of Hong Kong for people to visit there. Students in profile of my lesson are adults and language proficiency level is intermediate low. Target language is related to give advices such as ‘You should’, ‘You ought to’, ‘You’d better’ and new vocabulary are embassy, transportation and alternative.
During lesson, in step 7, teacher will activate students content, formal and linguistic scheme to predict the presentation and learn new vocabulary. In step 8, students have to find out some specific information about Hong Kong in reading text. And step 9, teacher will do storytelling using new vocabulary about her traveling in Switzerland. After hearing teacher’s storytelling, students have to put the pictures in time order as what the teacher told and then describe the pictures one by one in clockwise direction to retell the story using new vocabulary. In step 10, the teacher asks students to write a e-mail to a foreign friend who live in different country and will visit Korea in this winter. So they have to give some advices about what she has to do in Korea such as which place must go to see, eat and stay.
Theoretical justification of the activities.
Risk taking
The teacher encourage risk taking in with TSST in step 7. There would be other ways to preview or predict the lesson such as mind-map. But in this lesson plan, teacher uses TSST to teach new vocabulary, accessible. Teacher lets S1 ask S2 the meaning of ‘access’, and then S2 asks S3 the meaning of ‘ible’. Also teacher uses TSST to activate student’s content schema. She says ‘S3, please ask S4 ‘how can you get information about Hong Kong and then S4 answers the S3’s question. Teacher encourage shy students, S2 and S3, to do risk taking by using TSST. Trough TSST, students have more chance for failure of English because students are more pushed to think about grammar and context when they speak. Even though students make failure or error, they have to speak the target language frequently in the classroom to learn it. So TSST is better than mind-map for students to do risk taking in warm-up stage and this lesson plan follow it..
Teacher encourages risk taking by cueing. The more students get chances to speak English, the faster they would reach the success in learning it. The teacher tries to check Ss’ understanding by asking individually students to summarize the content of the text in step 8. The teacher cues when necessary. She does not chunk. She cues saying like that ‘ OK, use the answer of the first question’ or ‘You can start with ‘Hong Kong is~ ‘ in step 8. If the teacher gives students a chunk of summary, they have little chance to fail in target language. Students have to think still about grammar and context when they speak English to solve the cue and to summarize the context exactly.
I will give one suggestion for this lesson plan to encourage more risk taking. Instep 9, students do not take enough risks. They just try to retell what the teacher said looking at the pictures. It would be better if the teacher asked students to summarize the teacher’s storytelling in their own word or express their feeling as much as possible after looking at the pictures. It will give Ss more chances to make failures when they speak.
Intrinsic motivation.
The material should motivate students because the text contains advice. The
material of this lesson plan is the context about advice for traveler in Hong Kong. This material can create students intrinsic motivation because they can react personally for advice.
The teacher asks personalizing questions in step 7 and 8. Intrinsic motivation
comes from inside of learners. Students desire to perform the activity because it is interesting. While the teacher asks students question ‘If you have a chance to travel aboard, which county would you like to go’ and ‘what advice can you do for traveler in Korea?’ in this lesson plan. Those kinds of personalizing question motivate Ss’ intrinsic motivation. But step 7 and 8 need more personalizing questions. And personalizing question need to be more specific. For example,, ‘what kind of question did you ask to workers in traveler agency’, ‘Have you ever been to Hong Kong, tell us your experience’. Those specific personalizing question should motivate Ss’ intrinsic motivation.
The teacher uses advice gaps to motivate Ss in step 9and 10. The teacher
directs discussion in pairs about what the foreign friend to do and how she should do in Korea. They discuss to find out other advices. They would like to participate the discussion actively because it is interesting, not because of anticipated reward. It motivates them to speak and bridge the gap.
Input Hypothesis
Firstly, the reading text is from internet web site for authentic situation so it contains roughly tuned input. The text is not for study English. It casts a wide net, it means it covers Ss’ competence I, and i+1.
Secondly, all teacher’s talks are roughly-tuned input. She asks meaningful
question such as ‘what are we going to do?’ It is more interesting. The teacher’s questions does not focus on grammar. She gives massive comprehensible input by asking a lot of questions.
But we can find the finely tuned input in storytelling in step 9. The teacher
does a storytelling because she wants to show how the new vocabulary can be used. She wants Ss to practice new vocabulary after hearing her storytelling. I suggest that she should just tell her experience naturally not using target vocabulary. It would be more roughly tuned input. She can give more massive comprehensible input.
Ⅲ. Conclusion
The activities of this lesson plan is well designed for adults. Even though we can give some suggestions to this lesson plan, it contains appropriately risk taking, intrinsic motivation, input and output. Student’s goal of the class is learning English effectively. In order to do, teacher’s job in the classroom is very important for students to learn second language. The material and lesson must be motivated by student’s intrinsic desire. Teachers have to encourage risk taking and give massive comprehensible input.
As a future teacher, I will make an effort to apply a lot of SLA theory to my class. My goal is that my students reach to succeed in communicative competence. I will make an environment for them to acquire the language cognitively. SLA class was really helpful for me to design my lesson. I really thanks for it.
Submitted by Sophie
Posted by James Trotta at December 12, 2006 12:47 PMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.