Summary of the lesson
My lesson is designed for adult learners who are at intermediate high in speaking, listening and reading and intermediate mid in writing. The topic is a cosmetic surgery and the materials include some visuals such as a poster, hand-outs and laminated scripts. In warm-up, they are going to mainly discuss ‘good-looks’ in groups. In presentation, they will be listening to a conversations talking about a cosmetic surgery and answering 4 focus questions. Then, they are going to learn several vocabulary items and one grammar rule introduced in the text within its context. In the three following activities, a game using laminated strips, a role-play and a discussion, students have more change to practice what they learn in warm-up and presentation. The students can practice a certain grammar form, unreal conditionals- ‘if I past verb, I would…’- in the game using laminated strips. In the next activities, a role-play and a discussion, students have more freedom to say what they want. They are going to talk about the topic, a cosmetic surgery in both a role play and a discussion.
II. Analysis
Right –hemisphere participation
Krashen insists that adult learners should learn language as children do. One obvious thing observed in children’s language learning is ‘right-hemisphere participation’ such as helps from emotion, sociability, imagination, which are hardly seen in adults’ language learning. To encourage adults to use their right brain functions, I use visual supports in warm-up. When pre-teaching vocabulary, I show the students a poster of a figure saying a sentence that contains the target vocabulary items so that I can help them imagine and visualize the real situation that the words can be used. Also, as an independent activity, I designed ‘role-play.’ By doing a role-play, the students will imagine the situation, interact with partners and picture the figures and to do so, their brain functions should be used a lot.
Risk-taking, facilitative anxiety
In affective theories of SLA, it is said that the students who are willing to take risks are more successful learners. Also, facilitative anxiety helps learners acquire language more successfully, though it is different form Krashen’s point of view. There two factors, risk taking and facilitative anxiety are related to each other because when students try to take risks, there usually comes facilitative anxiety. To form facilitative and encourage students to take more risks in my class, I am using lots of classroom interactions more risky to students. For example, TSST is more risky than brainstorming. Also, I often call on an individual student to answer aloud. At the same time, to prevent the anxiety from being debilitative, I often help students get the right answer by cueing, reflecting and lots of positive feedback.
Intrinsic motivation
In SLA affective filter theories, intrinsic motivation is more valued than extrinsic motivation as it helps students become more eager for learning. To help students have intrinsic motivation, it is said that the topic should contain controversy, conflict, opinion or advice, that there should be personalized questions in presentation and that there should be gaps in follow-up activities. In my lesson the topic is a cosmetic surgery, which is quite controversial and brings up lots of different opinions. Also, in presentation I ask students what they would advice to the character who appears in the listening if they were her friends. In other words, students are asked to give their personal opinions. In activities, students are doing a role-play and a discussion. The two activities are classic examples that have imagination, experience and opinion gaps. Therefore, students’ intrinsic motivation will be stimulated.
III. Conclusion
This lesson concerns mainly the two points in SLA theory, right-hemisphere participation and affective theories, especially the risk taking & facilitative anxiety and intrinsic motivation. To help students benefit form right-brain functions, visual supports and an activity, the role-play are included. To encourage students to take more risks with facilitative anxiety, classroom interactions such as cueing or TSST are used and lots of positive feedbacks are given to students. For the last, to stimulate the students’ intrinsic motivation, a controversial topic is chosen and personalizes questions and information, imagination, experience and opinions gaps are given to students in presentation, step 8 and activities.
Submitted by Esther
Deciding on whether you want cosmetic surgery or not is a big choice, so before you get some plastic surgery make sure that you spend time researching your plastic surgeon to make sure they don't have a big backlog of complaints like some cosmetic surgeon firms do.
A tummy tuck can be performed together with liposuction to get the best result out of a body contouring surgical procedure done by board-certified plastic surgeons.
Proficiency level: intermediate low or mid
Grade: 5~6 year
Number: 10
Hour: 50 minutes
Experience degree: They have been studying English for 2~3 years with native speakers, thus they are not hesitant in communication, but when speaking, they make often mistakes. They need accuracy.
Ⅰ.Overview of the lesson
The lesson was designed by practicing Present Perfect Tense. In the warm up, I asked them to have been to other countries like ‘Have you been or visited other countries?’ Usually, they said as only “Yes”, not completing sentences. I asked again “where countries have you been before?” They said only the name of countries. Or they answered like “I went to Paris.” At the same time, whenever I asked, I put the questions on the board emphasizing on the expression ‘have been’ or ‘have visited’
In the presentation, first, I gave the reading text about the Europe travel to them. Ss were supposed to find out some answers for scanning in the reading text. And then, I explained what the present perfect tense is, they practiced several times how to make the tense, being providing examples. Lastly they wrote one paragraph writing in accordance with each experience, applying the tense.
II. Theoretical justification
Acquisition and Learning
First, after sharing about trips to other countries, they start to recognize differences between the past and the present perfect tense. However when explaining the rule, they felt hard again. They tended to takes notes the rule and examples but they didn’t understand how the rule is related to the tense. Second, through scanning, they answered naturally what they figured out. Based on the text, we asked and answered each other without consciousness of the tense. But I let them change the given Korean questions in English. They tried to focus on the rule but it took for a few times to answer. Third, they enjoyed writing their experience to visit other countries. Sometimes they made mistakes to follow the rule, but they could fix right away. I think, in the end, they could understand and use the rule, connecting to what they already knew. But, even though they practiced the rule a lot, I was asking them to explain it next time, they couldn’t justify about it.
Risk-taking
Though my Ss have no fear speaking in English, when facing new language rules, they avoid speaking to the class. I tried to ask them to response indirect questions in relation to the rule, such as ‘Have you been to Africa?’, not ‘Do you know the present perfect tense?’ It is because they are familiar with speaking freely. Second, although they are conscious to accept rules from the beginning, if speaking or writing to the class, they got chance to fix mistakes, like I have ‘aten’ pasta in Italia. The S was too much aware of making participle. At once he could change it appropriately, after getting my cue.
Output
My Ss are willing to learn English. They usually have confidence in dealing with speaking, even their languages are not complete sentences. The reason that they learn grammar is to have more accuracy. The Present Perfect Tense that exits in English is not corresponding to the Korean tense. However they keep on practicing even without being explaining rules. When learning the tense, they got the gap between the past and the present perfect tense. It isn’t consistent to use them separately. Through practicing several examples in speaking, they recognize how different they are. If they had taken test about the rule, they could not have used it. The process of writing one paragraph, using the rule, they made sure how to apply the language use exactly.
Ⅲ. Conclusion
The strength that I covered in the lesson are the warm up part, some ways of dealing the text and letting them write one paragraph. First, I introduced them to ask their travel experiences to other countries. Thus they paid attention to the class easily and they started to understand the content in relation to each experience. Second, the questions for scanning that I intended with the given tense were helpful to understand the tense. I let them produce to be sure their understanding, according to the text. It gave a chance them to make mistakes, at the same time they got to fix it. Third, writing one paragraph using the tense, they got to internalize the rule. It is because the task was clear to apply to their real experiences.
The weakness is to do explain the rules automatically. I wanted them to recognize differences between the past and the given tense. But I think this trial caused more hard to understand it. I let them translate Korean into English. In the long run, this task was focused on not language use but the usage. It means this is not for production, so it is less helpful way to use the target language.
Submitted by Judy
In today's culture teaching English as a second language is a very important job.
I. Overview of the lesson
Lesson Title: Harry Potter from
Student Profile: 2nd grade of middle school, Intermediate Low
Target Language: Vocabulary items relating to reading article/ creating an invitation card
Materials: Reading articles/ Hand out
Step7 (Warm Up)
*Teacher starts a class by asking, “What is your hobby? “ to activate students’ schema
* Teacher makes students answer the question using T-S-S-T and visualize the answers on the board.
* Teacher asks more questions such as “Does anybody know what a novel is? “, “ What is the characters’ name in novel that you have read or heard about?”
* Students think about the characters’ name in novel by T-P-S
* Teacher visualizes the answers on the board.
Step8 (Presentation)
* Teacher introduces that students are going to read an advertisement of a novel.
* Teacher gives students a reading material.
* Teacher let students gist the main idea of the reading articles by T-P-S.
* After T-P-S, teacher let student summarize the main idea.
* Teacher gives students 3 focus questions and asks the answers using T-S-S-T.
* Teacher gives students hand out to practice vocabulary items of the reading material. This includes “boring”, “uneventful”, “exciting”, and “eventful”.
* Teacher checks students’ feedbacks asking, “ Do you want to read the novel, Harry Potter? Why? or Why not? “
Step9 (Controlled activity)
* Teacher gives students handout and students have to fill out the blanks in it to summarize the story by T-P-S.
* Students do storytelling with their partners.
* Teacher gives students another handout and students have to sequence the given sentences by T-P-S.
Step10 (Independent activity)
* Teacher introduces the activity, “ Creating an invitation card for Harry”.
* Before writing, Teacher let students know what kind of information can be included in the heading, the body and the closing asking questions “ What would you like to start this card? “, “ How could you conclude this card?” “ What kind of information can be included in the body?”
* Give students 15 minutes for creating an invitation card for Harry.
II. The theoretical justification of the activities
A. Input Hypothesis
Teacher gives meaningful questions. Teacher starts the class asking, “ What is your hobby? “ and “ What is the characters’ name in novels you have read or heard about? “ in step7. Also, teacher asks, “ Do you want to read the novel, Harry Potter? Why or Why not? “ in step8. Those are all personalized questions and questions starts from closed type to open type.
Teacher uses an authentic material. Teacher uses an advertisement of a novel as a reading material in step8 and this material is roughly tuned input; because this includes not only the target language (i) but also only +1 languages.
Students ask and answer the questions and these question and answers are roughly tuned input. Students share ideas about the characters’ name of the novels by T-P-S in step7 and gist the main idea by T-P-S in step8. Also, students summarize and sequence the story using T-P-S in step9.
B. Affective theory: Risk Taking
T-S-S-T is found in step7 and step8. Students have to ask, “ What is your hobby? “ and answer it in step7. They have to ask on focus questions and answer them in step8. So, students should listen carefully what the other students are saying and answer it considering the correctness of the form and message.
Individual student predicts the title of reading material, gusts the main idea, then summarize it in step8. Students have to sequence the given sentences in step9 as well. In addition, students have to create an invitation card by themselves in step10. Students have to take higher risk gradually throughout step8, step9 and step10.
C. Neurological factors: Right hemisphere participation
This lesson includes group activities. T-P-S activities are found in step7, step8 and step9. Also, storytelling activity is found in step9. To perform these activities, students have to ask and answer to share ideas using target language and language that they have learned.
Students have to stand ambiguity. Students have to predict the title of the reading material, gist the main idea and summarize them in step8. Students have to stand the uncertainty but it gives students chances to practice their languages.
III. Conclusion
This lesson applies 3 theories. They are Input Hypothesis, Risk Taking and Right Hemisphere Participation. In step7, this lesson plan accounts for Input Hypothesis using meaningful question and T-P-S and Risk Taking using T-S-S-T. In step8, this lesson plan accounts for Input Hypothesis applying an authentic materials, T-P-S activity and Right Hemisphere Participation using predicting, gist and summarizing. Finally, Risk Taking using T-S-S-T. In step9, this lesson plan supports Input Hypothesis and Right Hemisphere Participation applying storytelling and T-P-S activity and Risk Taking using sequencing the story. In step10, this lesson applies Risk Taking choosing creative writing.
If this lesson plan includes visuals in step7, this can activate students’ schema more effectively. Teacher can prepare the pictures of characters in novels.
Submitted by Janet
I. Overview of the lesson
Generally, all children like not only singing songs and dancing to music, but also watching musicals. My students are 6 years old in Korean age and are introduced to various kinds of musicals in musical class. One day, I demonstrated a scene from a musical. At the beginning of the lesson, I introduced a song with the lines I taught in the lesson. The learners liked the song and movements because the gestures looked very funny. I acted out some dialogue with a hand puppet about getting a stomachache from eating too much ice-cream.
The situation was very familiar to the students, and lines in the scene were not too difficult for them. As a result, they were interested in my presentation. I checked their comprehension and then had them repeat chorally and individually in order to memorize the lines. Next they were supposed to practice target expressions with a partner. They had the chance to both ask and answer one time. I asked how they felt when their friends or family were sick, how they felt when they had a stomachache, and what they can say to their friends or family when they have a stomachache.
II. Theoretical justification of the activities -Risk taking
In this lesson, T-S-S-T was employed to force students to take risks in the warm-up and presentation. My young learners don’t have the ability to express their opinions fully in English. Therefore, I often use T-S-S-T in class in order to get the students accustomed to taking risks and asking and answering questions by themselves without excessive fear of misspeaking.
My students are familiar with the T-S-S-T method and are often given the opportunity to take chances with their second language. In the warm-up, I put them in a position to take some risks. I demonstrated the following scene from the target musical consisting of dialogue between myself and a hand puppet:
Me: “Ouch! Ouch!”
Puppet: "What's the matter?"
Me: "I have a (stomachache)."
Puppet: “Why?”
Me: “Because I (ate too much ice cream).”
Puppet: “You should (stop eating ice-cream).”
Me: “Okay!”
I then posed the question, “Where am I sick?” The students were then asked to pose the same question to their classmates and answer with the target phrase “You (have a stomachache).” We then proceeded in the same way with 5 additional scenarios involving the vocabulary: “headache,” “toothache,” “itch,” “feel dizzy,” and “sunburn.”
Higher level questions were utilized in the presentation to lead the students to be successful language learners. I struggled to stimulate the students to express their opinions using the language targets; “What’s the matter?”, “Because I have…”, and “You should…” I asked the students some higher-level questions, such as: “How do you feel when you have a stomachache?”, “What can you say to your friends when they have a headache?”, and “What should you do when you have a toothache?” Some high risk-takers wanted to answer the questions but just raised their hand and couldn’t use the target expressions.
To control the activity, I gave positive feedback to the students who were successful and to those who were helping their classmates and negative feedback to students who raised their hands excitedly, but had no answer. Also, there were some students who were not willing to gamble at all with the activity. I tried to help by giving them confidence through cueing them to produce the desired response.
The opportunity to guess words was in the presentation so that the students could interact with the new vocabulary. I provided the target vocabulary based on illness such as; “headache,” “sunburn,” “toothache,” “itch,” and “dizzy.” Some vocabulary items, such as: “headache” and “stomachache” were familiar to them, but they had difficulty understanding the meaning of “sunburn.” I tried to convince them to tolerate the ambiguity of the unfamiliar word. However, they had a lot of difficulty getting past their inability to grasp this new vocabulary. As a result, I showed gestures and facial expressions to the students to try to help them. This was somewhat effective to encourage the students to predict the meaning of the words, but not enough. So I translated the new vocabulary into Korean to help them understand more fully.
After the class was finished, I reviewed the lesson and thought of one suggestion to help the students’ learning: if I had used pictures to demonstrate illnesses, the students would have understood the new target vocabulary, such as “sunburn,” “sun cream,” and “diet” much more easily.
III. Conclusion
According to the theory of Risk-Taking, the teacher should provide some opportunity for failure to the students and let them adventure with the target language. To follow it, I employed T-S-S-T, the higher level questions, and guessing words in this lesson.
In addition, the teacher should keep in mind the features of the low risk-takers and encourage them to produce correct answers without too much extended pressure. So I chose methods like cueing, modeling, chunking, and correcting errors.
Also, if the high risk-takers interrupt the class too much and exert a bad influence on their classmates, the educator should control them to speak or write with appropriate language.
Submitted by Mi Hee
I. Overview of the lesson
This lesson is designed for the Intermediate-low 6th grades Elementary school students who go institutes three times a week. Most of students are exposed to a variety of topics in order to maintain their interest in English learning also students are eager to learn English as their parents emphasize the importance of learning English all the time. Main focus in my lesson was that students make their own top five lists what they enjoy doing. In the warm up stage I asked students some questions to activate their schemata about their sleeping habits for teaching some key words which are related to sleeping habits. I did TSST a lot for leading all students participate to the class. Then in the presentation stage, I asked students some questions for identify genre. I used internet web page to find out the genre. I also gave some focus questions before do reading Test for helping students' understanding. In the guided practice stage, I gave some activities, one is fill in the blank from the keywords and make their own list about their top five things what they enjoy doing.
II. Theoretical justification of the activities
A. Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is cognitive way. It means desire to perform an activity because it's interesting not because of anticipating rewards. As far as Intrinsic Motivation concerned, students learn better and want to do something voluntarily if they are interested in what they are learning. I asked some questions in step 7 to activate their schemata and also for leading their interests. For example, I asked about their sleeping habits because my topic was top five sleepiest animals in the world. Most of animals don't exist in Korea, so students will be interested to see them even through the pictures. In step 9, I asked students to make their own top five lists what they enjoy doing in their daily life. This also can make students compare to others' and get some interests. With regards to promoting intrinsic motivation, the lesson was unsuccessful in some aspects because I didn't give interesting activity in step 10 so it might have possibility to lose students' interests about the lesson.
B. Risk-taking
Risk-taking is quite important to students for learning language. When they make mistakes teacher should not give an answer immediately. Teacher try to encourage students to find their answer by themselves to take a risk in the class. So I asked individual questions a lot in step 7,8 and 9. Also I asked them to answer in complete sentences by themselves. I only used repetition and chunking when I taught vocabulary and asked them to summarize. When they have a problem making the sentence correctly, I cued instead of modeling language. In step 7, warm-up, I used T-S-S-T for a question ‘How many hours do you sleep a day’ . Students had some difficulty to make complete sentences but I didn't give answer instead of that I asked other students to help. This was a good way to encourage students to make errors and correct themselves. Taking a risk is necessary when students are learning. Teacher encourages risk taking by cueing. Then more students get chances to speak English, the faster they would reach the success in learning it.
C. Input Hypothesis
According to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, the students can build up competence by understanding input and the text material should be concerned to be meaningful for students. I think activating schemata is very important to make input comprehensible. Once students are activated what they learned before, it is very helpful and effective for them to understand the new material better. So I gave some questions in step 7 to activate their schemata. Input hypothesis says that students can build competence by understanding messages. So for making comprehensible input to students, I asked students paraphrase with chunking in step 8. Following to Krashen's “I+1.” in his theory such as "I" represents input at the current level of competence, and “+1” means input slightly beyond the learner’s current level. I did some higher activity for Intermediate-low students to make their own list to lead them higher level than current.
III. Conclusion
Through analyzing my lesson plan with some theories from SLA, I found some good things and some problems by myself. So I could evaluate by myself too. When I make another lesson plan next time, I can consider my weak and strong points about lesson plans then fix and evaluate by myself too. I'll consider risk taking and intrinsic motivation more when I teach students to make them to participate class more. Also in the lesson plan, by various kinds of activities, I'll try to make students can stimulate their right hemisphere.
Submitted by Cho Eun Jung
In this lesson, the grade of the students is 1st year of elementary school. Students have been studying English for about 4 hours in a week for the last year. Their levels of reading and listening are novice high and the levels of writing and speaking are novice mid. I’m going to teach the expression, ‘What do you hear?’ and the target verbs related with animal sounds such as roaring, snorting, hissing and so on. The materials are an audio CD, a story book, pictures of animals, flash cards, animal toys and handouts for bingo game.
In the warm-up, I have students listen to the sounds of animals to activate students’ schema and then ask several questions to individual students such as “What do you hear?” and “How do you feel when you hear ‘hiss-hiss’?” In the presentation, I tell a story to the class. Before the story telling, I ask individual students several questions to brainstorm content after reading the title of the story. I tell the story with animal pictures and flash cards written with the target expression and vocabulary items. After telling the story, I check students’ comprehension with questions. I also explain the target vocabulary items with animal sounds. In step 9 and 10, both activities are controlled activities because students are young. The first activity is a role play with the same context in the presentation. The second activity is to play a ‘bingo’ game with the target expression and vocabulary items. Mainly, I’m going to mention the lesson with intrinsic motivation and risk-taking in this writing.
This lesson is consists of activating intrinsic motivation with interesting materials, personalizing and gaps. Firstly, in the material, using a CD recorded animals’ sounds is enough interesting to have students activate their schema. They can get their opinion through listening to the CD. Some of them may guess “It’s a lion!” or “It’s a tiger!” when they listen to the sounds of animals. Others of them may think “It’s horrible!” or “It’s pretty tough!” when they listen to the sounds of animals. Thus, this material brings out students’ intrinsic motivation.
Secondly, the warm-up and the presentation are planed of exciting intrinsic motivation with personalizing. In the warm, I ask several questions to individual students to activate their personal opinion after listening. To illustrate, I ask individual students “How do you feel when you hear “hiss-hiss-hiss”?” or “Let’s think! What animal is it?” with sound of an animal. Students can answer the questions such as “It’s cute,” “I’m scared!” or “It’s a snake.” In the presentation, I have students guess what contents is in the story. For instance, I ask students “Where can you see animals?” or “What animals are in the zoo?” Students can answer the questions such as “I can see animals in my house,” “I can see many animals in the zoo,” or “There is a horse in Seoul Zoo.” Therefore, step 7 and 8 activate students’ intrinsic motivation.
Finally, step 9 and 10 are outlined bring out intrinsic motivation with gaps. In step 9, students do a role play with target vocabulary items. Students have imagination gap and information gap through the role play. When some of them play a role of a lion, the students guess how a lion makes sounds and the students know which verb is used to express the lion’s sound. When others of them play a role of a boa constrictor, the students imagine how a boa constrictor makes sound and they know which verb is used to express the boa constrictor’s sound. In step 10, students play a ‘bingo ‘game with target language. Through this game, students have opinion gap. The class consists of several teams. Each member has each opinion gaps when they talk what is good way to win the game. For example, students can suggest “’Roaring’ is in this blank and ‘Snorting’ is in that blank.” Some students can agree or disagree because they have each opinion. Hence, step 9 and 10 is designed with intrinsic motivation.
This lesson is also planed of activating risk-taking by asking questions to individual students and a role-play activity. First, in the warm-up, I ask individual students “What do you hear?” after listening to the sounds of animals. Students can hesitate to answer because they don’t know the content or they worry about answering in a complete sentence. At the moment, I can cue the student with showing an animal picture or I can model for the students. Additionally, I use T-S-S-T to practice the target expression or classroom language. At the moment, students can worry about the new expression or making the question. When they have difficulty to ask and answer the question, I can model for them or ask the other students to help them. Hence, students take risk through answering individually the question or T-S-S-T.
Second, in step 9, students can take risk when they do a role-play activity. They can hesitate to play a role when they are shy to stand or to speak loudly in front of the class. If they need to help to play their role, I can give some hint to them. For instance, I have the students see the board on which is animal pictures and flash cards with target expression and verbs. They can recognize what they should say matching with their role and the hint on the board. Therefore, students take risk in the role play.
In conclusion, I analyzed this lesson with intrinsic motivation and risk-taking. This lesson is outlined activating intrinsic motivation with interesting material, personalizing and gaps. The lesson also brings out exiting risk-taking with asking individual students, T-S-S-T and a role-play. I think intrinsic motivation and risk-taking are very effective factors to encourage students in their hardest, if, especially, the age of students is young. One of the reasons is because thought of the young students is simple. Thus, they need to practice what they can think deeply. The other reason is because they lack concentration of the class. Therefore, risk-taking is very helpful to control of the concentration of students.
Submitted by Ray
Ⅰ. Overview of the lesson
This lesson was designed for my Methodology microteaching presentation. The title is “Housing” and the student’s proficiency level is intermediate mid or low. This is conversation class in private language institute. Students are totally motivated because of their transfer to the foreign countries in six months or so. They are supposed to learn “used to + inf.” and several vocabulary items related to the topic.
In step 7, I ask student look at the pictures. Next, I ask several questions individually by using TSST. Then I introduce today’s lesson by asking them brainstorming about “Housing”. Here I ask them to TPS.
In step 8, I ask them read focus questions before listening to the text. First, I had them guess the answers in pairs and speak the answers individually with complete sentences. Then they listen to the text again. But, this time they fill in the blanks as they listen. Next, I explain the grammar by personalizing.
In step 9 and 10, I have students do an information gap. I have them make pairs A and B. Each student is given different picture. Next, I ask student describe their dream house in groups.
Ⅱ. Facilitative Anxiety and Intrinsic motivation
In step 7, I ask students several questions individually and use TSST techniques to promote facilitative anxiety. So, students can pay attention and participate in class more. Also, I use materials to draw students’ interest so that I can increase their motivation. Using pictures and graphic organizer activate students’ motivation by connecting them to the topic. I provide them authentic topic because motivation comes from the inside of our minds. We can promote students’ motivation intrinsically as well as extrinsically; here I want to use intrinsic motivation because they are adults.
In step 8, I ask students make complete sentences when answering the questions. Also, I have them guess the answers for focus questions before listening to the text. Next, I ask them fill in the blanks as they listen again and then check the answers individually by asking and answering the questions. This helps them generate more language, making the anxiety facilitative. Also, I personalize different questions so that I make the topic relevant to students to build up intrinsic motivation.
In step 9 and 10, I ask students describe about their dream house in groups. Next, I ask one student from each group talk and write down what they heard. Facilitative anxiety helps student here try to make correct answers. I also provide communicative activities to increase their motivation. I need not promote extrinsic motivation because intrinsic motivation is more motivating than extrinsic motivation.
Ⅲ. Conclusion
When we make lesson plan, we should apply SLA theories to make the lesson successful. To make the lesson more in efficient way, the teacher can use facilitate anxiety and intrinsic motivation. To promote facilitative anxiety, we can use asking questions by using various classroom interaction techniques. It is important and takes times to figure out the proper level of anxiety. If students have too much anxiety, they don’t perform well while if they have too less anxiety, they would be lazy. In addition to the facilitative anxiety, we can promote intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is related to the student’s own decision or interest and it comes from the inside of the students rather than outside. The teacher should activate student’s intrinsic motivation to generate them more language. Students can handle more anxiety if we give high motivation. Consequently, we can apply facilitate anxiety and intrinsic motivation properly to improve students proficiency when we design our lesson plan.
Submitted by Ellen
1. Overview of the lesson
Now I’m students English my English institute. I like to teach English to many students, especially, elementary school students who are novice mid level. This lesson plan was design for elementary school, 2nd year students with a story book, named, ‘Papa, please get the moon for me.’ Using this story, I taught what things are on the night sky and I explained the various shapes of the moon. Also I explain about adjectives, for example, small, big, and verbs, such as, jump, dance, etc. I used many visuals and realia for help the students understand. In the presentation, for example, I used 4 pieces of large sand paper to describing the night sky and I also used round shaped rice snacks to explain the various shapes of the moon. My students enjoyed the lesson and they participated activities very well.
Theoretical justification of the activities
Right hemisphere participation
Though this lesson, they usually use the right brain with various visuals activities and song. Therefore, they could learn the langue very easily with visualization, positive emotion and imagination.
First, in the lesson plan, I used visuals to help my students learn the language meaningfully. When they listened to the story, they were concentrated on the colorful picture storybook and they could remember the vocabulary items. Even though there were some difficult expressions for their level, they could easily understand with the pictures. For example, ‘The moon got smaller and smaller.’ it was difficult to explain to novice mid students. However, after they look at the pictures and they made the moon with the round rice snacks, which are called bbungtigi in Korea, they could understand this sentence very easily. I think student’s visualization helps the language becomes meaningful and memorable to the students.
Second, they could enjoy the class with various activities. The story book was the package with the CD. In the CD is included the song that is same sentences with the story book. The song is very easy and funny to the students, so they usually sing a song and sometimes they danced. I thought the song made them enjoy the English class. With enjoying the language itself, they could connect their emotion and the languages become to be important to them.
Last, they could imagine with the role play. Some students become fathers, the other students become the moon and the daughter named Monica. In the role play, they should think what they say and imagine about their role. Through these steps they could have the time to think and memorize the language automatically. Also the language would become meaningful and memorable to them.
The Affective Filter, anxiety, and motivation
In this lesson, I considered the student’s affective condition, anxiety and their motivation from their mind. If they have some burden to learn English or too much anxiety, the lesson would be not effective. Therefore I thought that how to make them feel stable and how to activate their intrinsic motivation for effective language learning.
First, I think that the student’s need the suitable anxiety when they learn the language. In SLA I learned the affective filter hypothesis. This hypothesis mentioned that the students who have high anxiety, low self esteem, low confidence don’t acquire the language easily. I agree his idea because when they feel too much tension or high anxiety from the homework or difficult vocabulary items, they couldn’t understand and they couldn’t be concentrate one the class. When I designed the lesson plan, I considered that I would like to the class actively and interestingly. So I used interesting storybook, audio materials and snacks, for example, various pictures, boards, and mini stars and mini moon, etc. Also I didn’t forget about the high risky questions because they need suitable tension and they should have the ability to think creatively. For example, I usually use the TSST technique, so they should make a question and answer about my question or their classmate’s questions. Then, they could be concentrate on the lesson and enjoy it, too.
Second, in the lesson, I think that the students should participate themselves with autonomy not because of their parents or the teacher. I was designed the activity for student’s personalization. For example, I asked students, ‘If you are Monica, what will you ask your papa?, What is your favorite thing?’. These questions, they could personalize and they imagine if they were Monica. And then they could participate actively the lesson. Also they could learn the language easily.
Input and Output
When I taught the story book to my students, I focused on the form and the meaning. In SLA, I learn the language form and the meaning are both important. So I gave them speaking, writing, listening and reading tasks. They should ask and answer the question and they should speak their own ideas. It they have some mistakes, I did error correction. Also I gave the homework to them that they listen to the CD and following the naïve speaker’s pronunciation for their better pronunciation. I usually emphasis the accurate sentences for better out.
Conclusion
When I taught the story book, Papa please get the moon for me, I realized that the importance of using right brain and appropriate anxious and intrinsic motivation and output and input for more effective learning language. Using various materials and realia, the students could concentrate on the lesson and the language becomes meaningful and memorable to them. Also when they spoke their own idea, they could personalize and build up their speaking skill. They use speaking, writing, listening and reading ability in one storybook. It could be effective their language learning.
Submitted by Sandy
Let's start to evaluate my final lesson plan. My final lesson plan's title is 'Things You Learn at the Movies' from 'Timesaver Reading Lessons' and the profile of students are from university students to adults and proficiency levels(speaking, listening, reading, writing) are all intermediate high. The target language is related to imaginations using first and second conditional sentences and the materials are some movie posters, 3 pictures of different famous people in their fields and some specific movie scenes from ‘Titanic’ for writing activity. The text is dealing about some common things in the same movie genres; for example, in the romantic movies, if two people hate each other at the beginning of a film, they’ll definitely have fallen in love by the end or in the action movie, heroes have nine lives and never need a plaster. So, students have lots of interests to do some activities from step 7 to step 10 and this lesson plan can be analyzed in terms of ‘Intrinsic Motivation’, ‘Risk Taking’, and ‘Output Hypothesis’ in SLA theories by examining step6, step 7+8, and step 9+10.
First, according to ‘Intrinsic Motivation’, my final lesson plan can be analyzed by examining step 6, step 7+8, and step 9+10. In step 6, the materials in my final lesson plan motivate Ss a lot by showing some movie posters, or famous persons like Madonna and Martha Stewart, or showing some specific scenes in ‘Titanic’ through movie script and let Ss give their opinions using conditional patterns. In the warm-up, I ask some personalizing questions like “Do you like to go to the cinema?”, “What was the last movie you saw?” and “What are your favorite and least favorite types of films? And why?” and let them relevant to them and express their opinions why they like certain types of films and the reasons. In step 8, I do reading activity with Focus Questions and I include vocabulary teaching in the middle of the presentation, so Ss can personalize and participate more actively with vocabulary lessons. In step 9 + 10, there are some gaps which Ss can do communicative activities. In step 9, I ask Ss to express their ideas using conditional forms, for example, ‘If you were a famous singer like Madonna, you….’, or ‘If you were a famous cook like Martha Stewart, you…..’ with filling the main clause, so Ss can find opinion gaps through discussion activity and they can notice that there are many gaps among them. In step 10, I plan my lesson plan for writing activity, so I show Ss some specific scenes in ‘Titanic’ through movie clip and let them imagine themselves as writers or directors. Through this activity, Ss can imagine many different conclusions from the original movie script and they can acknowledge that there are many gaps(opinion, imagination, and experience gaps) and they want to bridge the gap.
Second, according to ‘Risk Taking’, my lesson plan can be analyzed by examining step 6, 7+8, and 9+10. My final lesson plan’s topic is not risky but Ss must take risks to be successful language learners. In step 6, the materials can motivate Ss by remembering the movie storyline or the persons with whom they go or activating their right hemisphere of the brain. In addition, Ss can express their opinions or have some conflict about their movie preferences to select what to see. In step 7+8, there are many questions from the teacher or Ss, for example, ‘What did you do last weekend?’ or ‘What typically happens in a Hollywood romantic comedy?’. Even though, they are intermediate-high level Ss, they have lots of chances for failures to answer questions so the teacher should identify their failures immediately. In step 9(speaking activity), I don’t have much risk-taking activities because I use some strips which are already written the target content languages. So, it would be better to change the topic to increase risks, for example, they speak about themselves by imagining different results what they have lived so far, so they can’t reuse some expressions from the text. In step 10, I make Ss to post their movie script online board so they have a lot of risks to overcome.
Third, according to ‘Output Hypothesis’, my lesson plan can be analyzed by examining step 7,8,9, and step 10. In step 7,8 and 9, the teacher and Ss are asking and answering questions through T-S-S-T. For example, in step 9, the teacher and Ss are asking and answering questions like ‘If you were a famous director like Steven Spielberg, you….’ and at the end of the controlled activity, one student summarizes what we have done so far and that student would have some problems in summarizing. He would say ‘If I was a famous director like Steven Spielberg, I will cast Nicole Kidman for the leading role’. So, the teacher gives some hints(If I we..we.. r~, I wo~~ d….’ or gives some clear models and he experiments again with the correct ones. We call this ‘reprocessing’ which means one student speaks with some errors and the teacher will give some error correction by giving some hints or give clear model and that student will try again and again. Maybe he or she can do very well in short or simple sentences or he can have some problems in long or complex sentences. On the other hand, in step 10, Ss are in control and give their own opinions without the teacher assistance. So, the interlanguage competences of each student will be developing in this activity.
To sum up, my final lesson was very well reflected SLA’s theories; ‘Intrinsic Motivation’, ‘Risk Taking’, and ‘Output Hypothesis’ in step 6, step 7+8, step 9+10. What I would like to suggest for my lesson plan, it would be much fun for Ss to imagine themselves as if they were in imaginary situations like movie stars and they can personalize themselves without hesitation and they can achieve communicative goals at the end. It would be an interesting topic and Ss can do more actively in the class.
Submitted by Laura
Many may find that an English lesson could help improve their literacy at any age.
The lesson I‘ll analyze with SLA theories is writing material which is about unusual customs in the world. For this class, the teacher need to prepare handouts, picture cards, vocabulary strips for the gist quiz, two decks of word cards for activity. The procedure of the lesson starts with brainstorming about holidays for the warm up. Then, personal questions that the students like the most are followed. In the presentation part, pictures, word strips, graphic organizer are used for the gist question of the writing. For the controlled activity, the students make sentence with words on the cards and lastly, the students do a role play intended to check their understanding of that day's lesson.
This lesson is useful to activate the learner's right hemisphere participation. In the presentation part, the students can activate their right-side brain matching pictures and using graphic organizer which are designed for visual effect. In the step 10, independent activity, role play triggers the right-side of the brain letting the students use their imagination to act a role in the role play.
When it comes to affective filter, this lesson is designed to increase their motivation and tension at proper degree. First, most of the questions are made a bit easy for the level to decrease the student's anxiety. Pictures, word strips and posters are supposed to help the students to get the answers with ease. But, at the same time, the teacher can call make the atmosphere more alert by calling on the student individually,
Input that the students can get from the teacher, I believe, is not very comprehensible. Of course the text is authentic and other assistant materials are also authentic. But if I am asked that how the content which is about other countries customs motivates the students to read, then I would hesitate. However, the output hypothesis is well developed in this lesson. The personal questions in warm-up part, higher level questions about the students' opinions on specific subject in presentation part, and role play activity in step 10, all of these are great examples to check the students' competence, their writing and speaking abilities.
In conclusion, many SLA theories were applied to a simple lesson plan, and we can notice most of the theories are shown every step in a lesson plan. That means we can try and check the theories in our real class and find the best way to teach the student with the best approach. Also, after all, the best way to teach the students the second language is to let them lead their ways with the teacher's minimum and encouragement to move on to the next stage.
Submitted by Marta
As one of my final SLA project topics for an analysis on my final lesson plan of Methodology, I'm supposed to choose Input Hypothesis which emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input in teaching and learning language. In addition to Input Hypothesis, I chose Intrinsic Motivation because I think giving students motivation from the inside is very helpful for making them learn voluntarily which is necessary for effective learning of language.
In relation to Input Hypothesis, the text material should be concerned to be meaningful and appropriate for my students' competence. My students are intermediate low level, high school first graders. They are interested in future career. Because they should choose their course between mechanical and literary. So I think choosing a job that is right for you is the very important. In order to choose the right job, they think about their own interest and aptitude. For the first time I gave the paper which is job survey.
In that paper there are many expressions to know about person’s characteristics.
They can learn new languages while they focus on the contents of the survey paper. It also gives many vocabularies which are helpful for them to understand the contents. The languages it gives generally are not too difficult and not too easy, and also cover all from easy, familiar ones to more difficult, unfamiliar ones, so I can say they are "roughly tuned and i + I input" according to Krashen's Input Hypothesis. For example, most of my students know "practical, insightful, outgoing and persuasive" but most of them don't know "assertive, enthusiastic,
In addition to presenting comprehensible text material, I did something to make my students' input comprehensible for Step 7 and 8 in my final lesson plan and I'll show you some of the examples. First, during the warm-up, I asked them some questions about Job “activate their content schema, for instance, "Do you know what is the most popular jobs in Korea? or "Would you tell us one of the popular career?" And I used some real pictures about Job "Can you see what kinds of careers they are?" to activate their schema, as well. I think activating schemata is very important to make input comprehensible. Once students are activated what they learned before, whether it is genre, content, or form, it is very helpful for them to understand the new material better. Secondly, when I taught them new vocabulary, I used visuals, such as pictures and realia, and gestures to make input comprehensible. When I use visuals, my students understand better because they visuals like pictures and realia, because visuals are more meaningful than text especially for young learners and meaningful input is more comprehensible.
As far as Intrinsic Motivation concerned, students learn better and want to do something voluntarily if they are interested in what they are learning. Firstly, the material, the job survey, is interesting to my students because it is authentic, in other words,
At their age, They should think about their careers. Future career is one of the important issues for them.
During step 9, as another way for intrinsic motivation, I had my students do the role play that prepared for the job interview. As A pair, One will be a employer. The other will be a employee. They can imagine their Partner’s character. I designed the role play including problem solving as a gap activity because students are more motivated and learn more voluntarily when they focus on the meaning and languages can be used for a real communication. . They can imagine their Partner’s character.
Until now, I've looked at my final lesson plan in terms of Input Hypothesis and Intrinsic Motivation. First, I found that I tried to give my students comprehensible input which is i + 1 or roughly tuned. I'm thinking about the problem back to my English learning career since middle school. I often didn't find the right language for certain situation and I think that's because my input was mostly from the textbooks which were not rather comprehensible or meaningful. Next, if the input is more authentic or related to their lives, students can be more motivated from their inside and participate in class more voluntarily. In addition, to make my students motivated, I should design my class as gap activities so the student can focus on meaning
Kim, Young Ae
The title of the lesson is ‘Pulling Over a Car” which is designed for listening microteaching in methodology I class. Students are adults and their proficiency level is speaking, listening, writing for intermediate low, and reading for intermediate mid. This lesson focused on improving students’ English speaking and listening skills so that they can use them in real life. Because they had learned English with a strong focus on knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, they don’t have much opportunity to speak or practice everyday English. In this lesson, students will practice to describe driving a car by using key words and expressions such as pull over, used to and in a hurry. So by the end of the lesson, students should be able to describe the situations of driving a car in a real life.
I’d like to talk about how well integrated SLA theories in the warm up part in this lesson plan. Firstly, in the warm up part, this lesson plan applied Krashen’s input hypothesis by asking many kinds of questions to make comprehensible input such as T-S-S-T, and individual questions. For example, the teacher asked students look at the screen and asked them what they see. After then the teacher asked the same question again so that one student speaks at a time. It is crucial to ask questions individually to make comprehensible input. By asking questions individually, the teacher can check student’s comprehension, also students can recognize how well they follow the lesson.
Secondly, this lesson plan applied intrinsic motivation which is one of the SLA theories. As we learned, intrinsic motivation comes from inside of learners. Also intrinsic motivation has to come from learner’s own decision. Students have desire to perform because it is interesting not because of anticipating rewards. For this reason, intrinsic motivation is more motivating than extrinsic one. For giving some examples from this lesson plan, the teacher asked students to personalize in the warm up. The teacher asked students to share their own experiences by asking questions like ‘Have you been pulled over in a car?” And the student answered to the personalized question, and the teacher asked the same question to another student. Then another student answered, the teacher gave students a modeling. By doing this activity, teacher can activate students’ intrinsic motivation.
Thirdly, this lesson plan applied intrinsic motivation by using information gaps which is one of the SLA theories. There are four different kinds of gaps: information gaps, experience gaps, opinion gaps and imagination gaps. This theory claims that if students know the gaps, students want to bridge the gaps to speech. Through this process, students can be motivated and they can have communicative activity. For giving one example from this lesson plan, students are divided into A and B. Student A will have a picture in the past, and student B will have a picture of now. There must be a few changes and students need to ask questions to each other to find out what the changes are. And the teacher has students to practice by using ‘There used to be …’ form. By doing this information gap activity, students’ intrinsic motivation is motivated enough. So this lesson plan is influenced by intrinsic motivation.
Lastly, I’d like to talk about how Risk Taking influenced in this lesson plan. Reflecting on affective theories of SLA, risk taking is willingness to take chance to gamble to try something new or to make an error. So successfully language learners must take risk. This lesson planed to ask lots of individual questions to give students more chances to take risk. Also this lesson tried to encourage low risk takers by doing comprehension check a lot. The teacher asked questions many times to check their comprehension, and asked students to speak in a complete sentence by saying “Can you say that in a complete sentence, please?” Therefore, this lesson plan shows the influence of risk taking which is one theory of SLA.
To sum up, this lesson is planned to use many kinds of theories of SLA such as Krashens’ input hypothesis, intrinsic motivation and risk taking in different parts of the lesson. Especially, this lesson plan is very successful in terms of using input hypothesis. Reflecting on Krashen, learners can build up competence by comprehending messages. He said learners should understand first, and they add some vocabulary items, grammar rules. Finally they become ready to speak and write. Because of this process, teachers should give lots of caregiver speech, and meaningful messages that are easy for students to understand. For instance, we know one Chinese student who made errors about ‘negation’ such as ‘no way’ and ‘nobody help’ etc. In this case, teacher should keep giving comprehensible input a lot, then the student will understand negation by himself. Therefore teachers should keep in their mind how much comprehensible input is important, and try to apply input hypothesis to their lesson like the teacher did in this lesson plan.
Submitted by April
Part I. Summary of Lesson Plan
Lesson Title: Friends
Profile of Students: 13-15 year old middle school, intermediate high
Target Language: vocabulary related to friendship; giving opinions and expressing gratitude
Materials: animated e-cards related to friendship, Anonymous letter from Lonely and Bamboozled in South Carolina to Dear Abbey column, a song titled “You’ve got a friend”, pictures of friends
Step 7. Warm up
• The teacher uses e-cards from 123greetings.com to activate Ss’ schema.
Ss Look at the e-cards and get an idea what the lesson will be about.
• The teacher asks several questions to individual students, such as “What are the e-cards about?”, “What do you do with your friends?”, “Have you ever had any conflicts with your friends? When and why?”
• The teacher then has one student summarize what they have said about in the warm-up using a TSST technique.
Step 8. Presentation
• The T has the students brainstorm key words and content after looking at the last line of the reading text from Dear Abby column.
Individual students guess, and ask other students the same question.
• The T draws attention to the genre(newspaper) by asking Ss where they would find such writing.
• The T has Ss skim the text for main idea (I need a friend who is a girl.)
• The T checks understanding by asking a student to summarize and by then having them ask another student to do the same. The T cues when necessary and ends with a clear model.
• Next, the teacher draws attention to new vocabulary by having students guess meaning from context. The words include “return”, “annoying”, “nudge”, and “bamboozled”.(Ex: When I call some of my “friends”, they don ‘t return my call.”/ I have a little brother, but he is annoying!/ I feel lonely, but also like a “nudge”/ Lonely and bamboozled) Individual students are called upon and try to identify clues that help them find the meaning. Individual students are called upon to give synonyms and antonyms. Students are also asked to come up with example sentences through think-pair-share.
•The T ends the presentation by asking some higher level questions and trying to personalize. The teacher asks, “Why do you think her “friends” don’t return her calls?”, “What would you do if someone you don’t like calls you? Would you return his/her calls? Why or why not?” “Can you think of anyone who you don’t want to be friends with? If any, can you tell us why?”
Step 9. Activity
• The T has Ss interview with their partner to find out about their best friend.
• In order to find out about their partner’s best friend, Ss must ask their partner questions about their best friend. Before they start interviewing, Ss write interview questions such as “Who is your best friend?”, “How long have you been friends with him/her?”, “What do you do with him/her?”, “Why do you like him/her?”, “Have you ever had any conflicts with them? When and why?”, etc.
• The T tells Ss to ask all the question types starting with ‘who, when, where, what, how, why, how long, etc.’
• After writing the interview question, Ss interview with their partner about their best
friend.
• After the interview, the T now has students summarize(level 3) about their partner’s best friend in groups of 4.
Step 10. Independent Activity
• The T plays the song titled “You’ve got a friend.”
• The T tell Ss to write a heartfelt thank-you note to a friend who has been a best friend with them. The T tell Ss to include any specific moment to illustrate why they felt special friendship with their best friend.
• They will have 10 minutes to write their first draft, when time is finished, they will exchange their writing with their partner to receive and give feedback.
• Then, the T will collect students’ writing to give feedback and/or correct “only” any serious errors.
• After the T’s feedback, students’ writing will be revised later and sent to their best friend or posted on the class homepage, so their best friend or other classmates can read their writing.
Writing prompt I
Who is your best friend? What make you feel special friendship with him/her? Write a heartfelt letter to your best friend to express how you feel with him/her. Include any specific unforgettable moment that you came to feel special with him/her. Also, include any moment with conflicts if you have ever had with your best friend, and express how you feel grateful for your friend being there for you all the time.
Write in the space below or on a separate sheet of paper for 10 minutes. Your first draft will be collected for T’s feedback and then revised to be sent to your friend. If you do not want the T to read your letter, then it will be sent to your friend directly after being revised on your own.
Step 11. Feedback
Step 12. Closure
Part 2. Analysis of Lesson Plan
A lesson plan can be varied what kind of SLA theories the teacher has in mind designing it. SLA teachers can apply different theories to their lesson plan to make it more effective and more appealing to the students. Intrinsic Motivation theory is one way to encourage students to be intrinsically motivated. This lesson plan can by analyzed in terms of the Intrinsic Motivation theory by examining step 6, steps 7 and 8, and steps 9 and 10.
Also, some of the ideas in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis has been spotlighted in contemporary SLA theories even though not all of the Krashen’s ideas are considered as the most effective way to acquire a second language. This lesson plan is designed using the input hypothesis; teacher questions in step 7, reading in step 8, and teacher instructions in step 9 all show the influence of Krashen’s ideas.
While SLA researchers and teachers mostly agree with some of the Krashen’s idea in Input Hypothesis such as caregiver speech, that is, meaningful roughly-tuned input through only the target language, other ideas in his Affective Filter Hypothesis have been opposed by some SLA researchers and teachers. Krashen suggests that low anxiety is important for learners to successfully acquire a second language. However, such idea is very controversial. Unlike Krashen’s idea, the given lesson plan is designed to encourage learners to take more risks to result in a successful language learning; using T-S-S-T questions in step 7, cueing in step 8, and asking different types of questions all show the influence of risk-taking hypothesis.
Furthermore, Krashen’s idea that listening comprehension and reading are primarily important, and that speaking comes naturally after language competence has built through listening comprehension and reading, has been directly opposed by Swain’s Output Hypothesis. Swain agrees that SLA classes should involve more communicative use of language focusing on meaning in order to help learners build up competence. However, Swain asserts that learners build competence through noticing the gap and testing hypothesis in speaking and writing. Steps 9 and 10 in the given lesson plan are designed to help learners to try out and experiment with a new language, notice the gaps, get feedback, and then change their interlanguage system.
1. Input Hypothesis
First of all, the teacher’s questions in step 7 are focused on meaningful communication. Krashen believes that SLA classes should focus on meaningful communication but not on the form. All the questions the teacher asks in the warm-up are meaningful. They are asked for real communication. For example, such a question as “Have you ever had any conflicts with your friends?” provides opportunities for the teacher and the learners to communicate with each other. The teacher does not know if any student in class has had any conflicts with their friends or not. So, such a question is genuine and authentic. In real life, people ask only when they do not know. Furthermore, another question like “What are the e-cards about?” is also intended to communicate with the students in authentic situation. A language classroom itself can make a real-life communicative environment where the teacher and the learners can use the target language in an authentic context. In short, the teacher asks meaningful questions in step 7 to create opportunities for authentic communication.
In addition to the teacher questions in step 7, reading in step 8 also provides the class with authentic communication in terms of roughly-tuned and caregiver speech. Krashen claims that listening comprehension and reading are primarily of importance in language program. According to him, the learners should be given lots of comprehensible input through listening and reading to help improve language competence. Above all, authentic materials such as newspaper article and radio news or songs supply a wide range of input as Krashen refers to roughly-tuned input. Such materials contain different levels of grammatical items. For example, a newspaper article contains easy forms like he or she, medium level of forms such as plural –s as in ‘I love cats.’, and difficult forms like possessive –s and singular-s as in ‘He walks to his grandpa’s every Sunday morning.” The easy forms like ‘he’ or ‘she’ in the article provides an opportunity for recycling and review while they also can be a new language for the novice low level of learners. Furthermore, learners can be exposed to the hardest form such as possessive –s or third person singular –s while reading a newspaper article. While reading an anonymous letter from Lonely and Bamboolzed in South Carolina to Dear Abbey column provides learners with roughly-tuned input.
Another example of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis in step 8 is that the teacher gives a clear model to summarize. Giving a clear model also can be a good way of make input comprehensible. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis states that the teacher should make sure that students understand what is being said or what they are reading. A clear model of giving summary provided by the teacher help learners better understand what they hear and/or read. In Krashen’s idea, teacher talk in SLA class should be like caregiver speech. Characteristics of caregiver speech includes modifying language, slowing down, repeating, restating, changing wh-questions to yes/no questions.
Next, teacher instructions in step 9 can also supply meaningful input to a limited degree. The teacher instructions here are furnished students for an interview activity. The learners will listen to the teacher instructions and will get an idea how to complete their task. So, the teacher instructions in step 9 are also roughly-tuned input for real communication.
2. Risk-taking
One of the example the teacher uses to encourage students to take risks is TSST questions in step 7. To illustrate this, the teacher asks one student summarize using TSST questions. A TSST technique involves much higher risks than a mind-map for two reasons. The first reason is a TSST involves calling on students individually. While a mind-map does not necessarily require calling on students individually, using a TSST technique, the teacher calls on an individual student to answer the teacher’s question and then the student who has answered asks the same question to another individual student. When the teacher uses a TSST technique, students have to pay attention because they never know when T will call on them individually. When an individual student has to speak to the teacher or the class, the chances for the learner to take risks are obvious. Besides, a TSST technique create far more risks than a mind-map because students have to think about grammar when they ask or answer a question while a mind-map does not involve much grammar rather than vocabulary.
Another example that the teacher uses risk-taking theory in the lesson plan is cueing in step 8. Compared to ‘chunking’, cueing creates much more risks. To elaborate this, students have to think about content as well as form when the teacher ‘cues’ rather than gives ‘chunks of words’. In the given lesson plan, having students individually summarize the reading text, the teacher cues when necessary instead of chunking. Cueing involves much more risks than chunking because there are more chances for students to make errors in grammar while they are thinking about content to summarize or answer a question. If the teacher gives chunks to the students, it is less likely that students make grammatical errors or give a wrong idea about the content. They might have some difficulty pronouncing the sentence. Otherwise, no higher risks would get involved when students repeat the chunked words. However, there are more chances for students to have problems pronouncing the sentence when the teacher cues.
In addition to calling on students individually, the teacher also pushes the students to take more risks by asking different types of questions. The teacher starts with a lowest level questions in step 7 such as “what are the e-cards about?”, which does not create high risks because they do not involve much thinking but memorizing. Then, the questions, “What do you do with your friends?” and “Have you ever had any conflicts with your friends?” require students to think about themselves. At the end of step 7, however, the teacher levels up the question types from knowledge and comprehension check questions to synthesis questions by having one student summarize. To answer synthesis questions, students have to combine two or more ideas so as to form a whole, that is a summary. Summary should include the essential points or ideas in a brief, concise restatement. If students do not clearly understand the main idea, they can not give a good summary. Another example of synthesis questions in the lesson plan is found in step 8. The teacher again asks a student to summarize to check understanding after having students skim the text for main idea. Then, the teacher asks questions requiring the highest level of critical thinking including such questions in step 9 as “Who is your best friend? Why do you like him/her?”
3. Intrinsic Motivation
First of all, looking at step 6, materials used in the given lesson plan creates intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is related to the learners’ own decision or interest. It comes from the inside of the learner rather than outside. According to the student profile in the given lesson plan, students are age 13 to 15 in middle school. Learners in such age group seem to be interested in friends and friendships. Also, an anonymous letter to Dear Abbey column is likely to get students to be involved to experience strong conflicts or advice because it is easy for middle school students to relate the topic to their own life. In short, materials used in the given lesson may draw genuine interests for the students’ age with plenty of advice, opinions and conflicts.
Along with intrinsic motivation of materials in step 6, the teacher also tries to apply the Intrinsic Motivation theory throughout the next steps. The teacher personalizes the topic by asking different types of questions in steps 7 and 8. First of all, he/she asks several open questions in steps 8 to help students relate the topic to their own idea and life experience. For example, to answer the first two questions “Who is your best friend? How long have you been friends with them?”, students relate themselves to the topic. Then, another question like “What do you do with your friends?” requires students to think about their own life. Also, with the question “Have you ever had any conflicts with your friends?”, students need to refer to their own previous life experience. Furthermore, students are encouraged to give their opinions when being asked “Why do you like your friends? Or why do you not like some classmates?”
Furthermore, the teacher tries to draw students’ interest by using communicative activities with gaps in steps 9 and 10. If students know that they have gaps in order to complete the task, they have reasons to communicate with others. In step 9, the teacher encourages students to talk with others by having interview activity. In addition to the interview activity in step 9, the teacher uses an opinion gap in step 10. The students are asked to give their opinions in a journal response. The teacher tries to get students intrinsically motivated to complete their task by telling them that their journal writing will be posted on the class homepage. The question of how Christopher Reeve has inspired the students seems to encourage them to give their own opinion; however, it does not seem that the given question like “Do you believe that Christopher Reeve was a real-life superhero? Why or why not?” would involve strong conflicts for students to give opinions. Who does not think that Christopher Reeve who has overcome such big disabilities is a real-life superhero? In brief, the steps 9 and 10 shows that the given lesson plan was designed to increase students’ intrinsic motivation.
4. Output Hypothesis
One of the example that the given lesson plan is designed using Swain’s Output Hypothesis is the interview activity in step 9. According to Swain, students notice the gap when they speak or write to reach the communicative goal. Even though the interview questions in step 9 are not so difficult for intermediate-high level students to answer with a correct form, students might make errors if their utterances are long and complicated. Some students might make errors not being able to use correct prepositions and/or appropriate conjunctions. For example, to answer the question, “Why do you like your best friend?”, students might have troubles and hesitates, saying “I like my best friend because he cares….”. Otherwise, they might make errors, saying “I like my best friend because he cares of me when I am troubled.”, for they do not know how to use the word ‘care’ correctly. When this happens, learners notice the gap between their own interlanguage system and the correct form in the target language system.
Step 10 in the given lesson plan is essentially to give students plenty of freedom to produce the target language. The teacher is not in control any longer. It is time for students to test their leading edge which is a newly learned form in interlanguage system. Everyone has different leading edge, so we can not imagine one’s leading edge. When students speak or write, they decide what to practice or what to test. When the learners get a new language, they do not know how to use it. So, they need to try out and experiment with it. They practice it to improve competence. Practicing involves reprocessing. To reprocess, learners try it out, get feedback, think again about the language and change their interlanguage system. For example, step 10 in the lesson plan requires students to write a heartfelt thank-you note to a friend who has been a best friend with them. While students write a heartfelt letter to a friend, they will try out a new form they have learned. Then they will get feedback from their peers in 10 minutes. Finally, teacher feedback will be provided for the students to think about what they wrote and change what is wrong in their interlanguage system.
Part 3. Conclusion
To summarize, the given lesson plan is designed using Input Hypothesis, Risk-Taking Theory, Intrinsic Motivation Theory, and Output Hypothesis. First of all, teacher questions in step 7, reading in step 8, and teacher instructions in step 9 all show the influence of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis. Unlike Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis, however, the given lesson plan is designed to encourage learners to take more risks to result in a successful language learning; using T-S-S-T questions in step 7, cueing in step 8, and asking different types of questions all show the influence of risk-taking hypothesis. In addition, the intrinsic motivation theory is used to help students get genuinely motivated by providing different types of personalizing questions in steps 7 and 8, and by providing communicative activities with gaps in steps 9 and 10. With the conflicts in friendship from Dear Abbey column in the newspaper, students in age 13 to 15 can go through deep feeling because they really can relate the topic to their real-life situation. Furthermore, Swain’s Output Hypothesis is used to furnish students with the opportunities to practice a language through the lesson, highlighting step 10.
In general, the teacher applies varied SLA theories in effective ways. The teacher tries to provide students with authentic use of the target language to make input comprehensible. Also, the teacher uses authentic reading (in step 8) and listening materials (in step 10) to help students get roughly-tuned input. Choosing a topic, the teacher considered students’ age to attract their genuine interest in the topic. Students in middle school have lots of things to say about friends and friendship. Moreover, the teacher tries to encourage students to take more risks. For example, the teacher have students use the target language in a sentence level by asking TSST questions and by asking them to summarize. Additionally, the teacher asks higher level questions that require students think critically. Finally, the teacher also realizes that using a language in speaking and writing is very important to build competence. Therefore, the teacher include speaking activity in step 9 and writing activity in step 10. Importantly, the teacher does not forget to give feedback after the independent activity (step 10) so that the students will have chances to fix their problem and change their interlanguage system. Applying different types of SLA theories helps teachers to design their lesson plan effectively.
One suggestion to improve the given lesson plan is that the independent activity in step 10 needs to include more conflicts, advice or opinions. Writing a heartfelt thank-you letter to their best friend might be an interesting topic for middle school students; however, it does not seem to create much conflicts. Writing one or two pieces of advice to any of their friends who has problem keeping friends would help students to get involved with more advice and opinions.
Overview of the lesson
This lesson deals with interpersonal communication, focusing on various conversational styles. After the class has discussed what makes someone a poor conversationalist, the students read an article titled ‘Don’t be a bore’. While they are engaging in the reading activity, they have a chance to develop various reading strategies such as skimming, scanning, recognizing topics, guessing unknown words, etc. Then, students participate in 2 different activities- guided practice and independent activity. First, in guided practice, students have a chance to describe some people’s specific behaviors (they all have poor conversation skills) given a worksheet by using the vocabulary learned from the class and give them a piece of advice. Then, in independent activity, students are asked to write their own article titled ‘‘the secrets of being an interesting person” by using the reading text as a model without the teacher’s assistance.
Theoretical justification of the activities
Right hemisphere participation
In this lesson there are several activities which stimulate student’s right hemisphere functions to make language learning more interesting, meaningful, and memorable. There are 5 categories of activities applied in this lesson- visualization, emotion, creativity, sociability, artistic sensibility, but I am going to introduce only 3 of them - creativity, emotion, and sociability.
First of all, throughout the whole lesson, students are frequently asked to summarize and paraphrase what the teacher have just said or what they have discussed in a group. Also, in step 10 students are required to write their own article titled ‘‘the secrets of being an interesting person” creatively and report the writing to the class after they have done. Those tasks are all related to creativity. As they are engaging in the tasks, their right hemisphere functions will be stimulated.
Second, in step 7 and 8 the topic is personalized and students have a chance to attach language to emotion, and finally language becomes more meaningful and memorable. In step 7 the teacher asks students personalized question such as “Do you like talking with people?”, “Why do you like talking with people?”, “Have you ever felt embarrassed while talking with someone because of their inappropriate behaviors?” etc. Those personalized questions continue to be asked in step 8. Furthermore, in step 9 students write their own advice to the poor conversationalists and finally they write their own creative article in step 10. Through these activities, student’s right hemisphere functions are activated.
Finally, in this lesson students participate in several kind of group and pair work following the teacher’s instructions. In step 7, students discuss in pairs what makes someone a poor conversationalist and in step 8 they share their ideas about some traits that boring conversationalist have in pairs and with class. In step 9, students give a piece of advice to those who are boring conversationalists, and through the whole class, communicative language teaching is effectively used. The topic is authentic and the language which teacher and students speak in this class is authentic. Also, students actively communicate through classroom interaction. All these activities support sociability of right hemisphere. As participating in this class, students get language more meaningful and memorable.
The Affective Filter, anxiety, and motivation
In this lesson facilitative anxiety and intrinsic motivation are applied in several parts of the lesson.
Facilitative anxiety
Facilitative anxiety is a slight nervousness or tension. Swain says it is helpful anxiety for students and different from debilitative anxiety since debilitative anxiety is too much anxiety which makes students perform badly and underachieve. However, facilitative anxiety keeps students more alert, poised and better prepared for class. In this lesson, the teacher promotes facilitative anxiety through calling on students individually, error correction, having student report their own writing to the class, etc.
First, from the beginning to the end of the class, the teacher calls on students individually by name and asks them several types of questions (type1-6) related to the topic such as “Katie, what are we going to do now?”, “Can you tell us why it is good to read on your own words, Anne?”, “Jin, can you tell us how you felt and how you responded to him?”, “Sun, what was the most difficult part for you?”, etc. When students are called on individually and asked to answer a question, they cannot relax entirely. If they know they will be called on randomly in class, they cannot help but more pay attention to the class.
Second, the teacher frequently corrects students’ error in class. In this lesson the teacher usually explicitly points out the error without correction and gives students time to think so that they can correct their error by themselves on condition that they know the answer. However, if it is a bit difficult for the level, the teacher corrects the error and has students repeat what the teacher has just modeled to the students. Here are the examples in the lesson plan; (student) “I felt absolutely uncomfortable and lose interest talk to him.”- (teacher) “You lost interest in talking to them.” / (student) “He always concentrates himself,” - (teacher) “concentrates himself?”- (student) “Oh, concentrates on himself.” If the teacher is willing to correct student’s error, then the students will have a slight tension and concentrate more on the form while answering a question.
Finally, in step 10 students have a chance to report their own writing to the class. To make a presentation in class definitely makes students feel nervous and apprehensive. However, because students know they are going to present their writing after the task, they will probably do their best to write a good article during the time. The students will take this task more seriously. On contrary to this, if there is no anxiety in class, students will be just too comfortable and they won’t be interested in participating in the difficult task.
Intrinsic Motivation
In this lesson the materials are motivating because they contain a strong advice. The title of the reading text is “Don’t be a bore” and the text says people resent and dislike those who bore them. After describing the main characteristics of boring people that research has identified, it concludes that we should work on changing them now if we have some of those traits. Some people can agree with this advice, but some might not. Like in this case, if materials contain opinion, conflict, strong advice, or controversy, the lesson will be more interesting and motivating. Thus, the reading text this class uses encourages students to feel motivated to participate in the class based on their own desire to communicate. That is intrinsic motivation.
In this lesson the topic is personalized in step 7 and 8. The teacher asks students personalized questions throughout the step 7 and 8. Here are some of the questions in the lesson; “Do you enjoy talking with people?”, “Have you ever met someone who made you feel just uncomfortable while having a conversation?”, “Have you ever talked with that sort of person, Sonia?”, “Do you know someone who is self-preoccupied?” etc. Like in this case, if the teacher personalizes topic, the students will have intrinsic motivation because they can connect the topic to their real lives. They can approach the topic easily with more interest and motivation. Thus, there is a good possibility that students are motivated to participate in the class.
The opinion gap in step 9 and 10 makes this lesson motivating. In step 9 the students are asked to give a piece of advice to those who are poor conversationalists. Since each has a different poor conversation skill, the students should give advice to each person appropriately given a worksheet. Here are the sample answers; “Chuck should ask others about their interests.”, “Helen should be more self-confident and not worry about having to impress others.”, “Alexis should stop complaining so much and be more positive.”, “Carlos should keep the conversation flowing more smoothly.”, etc. Every student may have different advice and students are willing to hear those different advices and share their ideas with the class. Likewise, in step 10 the students write their own article titled ‘‘the secrets of being an interesting person”. Their opinions about the characteristics of interesting person may vary from person to person. This opinion gaps and other gaps such as information gap, experience gap, and imagination gap give students clear reason to communicate. When students realize there are some kinds of gaps, they try to bridge the gaps through communication. They have a good reason to communicate. Thus, the opinion gap in this lesson is motivating because students are willing to engage in the activities in step 9 and 10 without any reward or positive feedback.
Input and Output
This lesson includes both input and output to reach a communicative goal. The students build up competence by comprehending input and producing language.
Input
First of all, in step 8 the students get quality input. The students read an authentic article concerning a boring conversationalist and have a chance to look back on themselves. The article (input) is at the students’ current level and slightly beyond the current level of competence, namely, what Krashen calls i+1 because +1 is automatic and always there in authentic language like the one in this article. The reading text has communicative message and the teacher always ask the students real questions related to the topic for communicative use. Also, the text contains full of vocabulary and language rules. It does not focus on only one language point like fine tuning input. Thus, with this authentic material the students get ‘+1 ‘naturally.
Moreover, the teacher asks communicative questions to provide meaningful input throughout the lesson, especially in step 7 and 8. The questions are like this; “Can you tell us why you like talking with people?”, “What do you think makes someone a poor conversationalist?”, “Can you tell us how you felt at that time and how you responded to him?”, “What was the most difficult part of the activity for you?” etc. The teacher does not know students answers or opinions. So, these questions are genuine and meaningful because the questions are used for real communication. Authentic conversations always include comprehensible input so that students can acquire the language naturally.
Lastly, in this lesson the teacher makes input comprehensible and gives students caregiver speech. The teacher frequently rephrases what s/he has just said using smaller chunks or changing the word order, and often provides examples related to the topic with caregiver speech. For one example, in step 7 the teacher makes use of a visual to connect students to the context being presented. The teacher shows students a picture of people at a party with this teacher talk: “Imagine you are invited at this party and you are asked to individually talk with all the people here. Do you think you will always be glad to keep the conversations going?” As students are seeing the picture, they express their feelings and opinions. For them, it is more understandable and memorable because, with this visual, the teacher makes input comprehensible and the students become to easily imagine the party is being given ‘here and now’. It has the same effect as the caregiver speech. When the teacher speaks caregiver speech and makes input comprehensible, +1 is always present in the input automatically. It exists in every meaningful message and caregiver speech.
Output
In this lesson students must produce language to answer teacher’s question. When they produce language to reach a communicative goal, that is, to answer a question, they sometimes hesitate, have a trouble, or fail, and notice they have a problem. It inevitably happens because their interlanguage competences are not fully developed. When the students are engaging in only reading and listening activities, they cannot have a chance to notice their problem. Only when they produce their language, they can discover or notice the gap between their interlanguage competence and the communicative goal. In almost all steps, the students make errors and the teacher corrects their errors. Here are the examples; (student) “we can have a chance to look back ourselves”- (teacher) “Look back on ourselves” - (student) “Ah, look back on ourselves.”/ (student) “We should place the cards to face down the table.” - (teacher) “Place the cards face down on the table,” “Would you try again?” -(student) “Yes. We should place the cards face down on the table” - (teacher) “Everyone, repeat after me. We should place the set of cards face down on the table.” Like these examples, while students are producing language, they have a great chance to discover their problem. In class, the teacher can be the best helper to fill the gap between student’s real competence and the communicative goal on condition that the teacher knows error-analysis. When the students solve their problems either with the help from the teacher or by themselves, they can build up their interlanguage competence. In this lesson, sometimes the teacher cues the answer and sometimes directly tells the students according to the degree of the difficulty for the level. Also, the teacher sometimes writes student’s error and the answer on the board and has the class chorally repeat what the teacher wrote on the board. All these reactions depend on the difficulty of the language. Anyway, through this process, the students find the solution of their problem and finally develop their interlanguage competence.
In step 10, students write their own article titled ‘‘the secrets of being an interesting person”. They should write down their own ideas about what makes a person interesting. Thus, the students control the discourse and have a chance to experiment with the leading edge, namely, hypothesis testing. The reason why this independent practice or hypothesis testing is so valuable is that when students try out new forms, they have a chance to think about the form again and make some changes. That is what Swain calls reprocessing. Leading edge is the forms that a learner is unsure about and still thinking about. These forms are unstable because the learner has not figured out how to use them, exactly. This is the stuff with which the learner has to do hypothesis testing. Only learners can choose their leading edge. So, this independent activity is important. During this activity, the students have a chance to select new forms (leading edge) and reprocess them. As the teacher gives the students chance to test their language in this activity, the teacher will be able to have better understanding of students’ interlanguage competence.
Conclusion
This lesson is based on several important theories of SLA to help students build up their competence effectively, and it is being proved in this report. This report is justifying the lesson’s theoretical foundation connecting the whole lesson to those theories of SLA; 1) Right hemisphere participation, 2) The Affective Filter, anxiety, and motivation, 3) Input and Output. Having carefully analyzed this lesson according to the SLA theories, I conclude that this lesson is well designed and well supported by reliable SLA theories, and I believe it can be used in a real class for this level of students.
Submitted by Joo Young
Overview the lesson
There are 20 students of this class is 3rd grade of middle school students and their proficiency level varies depending on the students however the average proficiency level is speaking, reading intermediate high, listening intermediate mid, writing novice high. The class is designed for the students those who want to learn English more effectively and there are students those who hope to study overseas to advance their English proficiency. Students meet once a week for 2 hours and the course last for 6 months. As most students have been to the English institutes and learned English from native speakers they are quite fluent in English however they are much more accustomed to classes based on the grammars, translating and memorizing the vocabulary words or repeating the drills therefore students are anxious to have some more fun in the class by doing lots of exciting activities and games. Also they hardly have any experience in other cultures except the inner circle cultures and their own culture. Therefore the class is also designed to trigger the students’ interest and fun to the variety of cultural differences as well as improving their English skills.
Theoretical Justification Activity
The “Neurological Framework” explains the relationship between the brain and the Critical Period Hypothesis. It suggests there is a process called “lateralization” which is a process assigning functions to the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere controls functions like the visualization, emotion, sociability, creativity and imagination and so on and those are the functions that helps people to learn the language much more effectively because by using the right hemisphere, language could be learned much more meaningfully and even some functions like sociability tells that the right hemisphere functions meet the reason for using the language itself.
I tried to design my own lesson plan to be more communicative and student centered by doing pair and group activities. Students will be in groups of 5 and each group will have one statement in a tone of a black and white view. Each student will pick 4 kinds of cards in turns and the student who has a “king” he or she will challenge the statement with his or her own idea, and the one with the “queen” will try to disagree with his or her group member and the person with the “jack” will agree with a student in his or her own group. The “7” will make a student summarize their own group members’ idea and the one with an “Ace” will have to paraphrase the groups’ idea. After 15 minutes of discussion, every group will share their own groups’ idea to the whole class and there will be a lot open, deeper discussion. Paraphrasing and summarizing, discussions with lots of open and personalize questions could be great way to make students practice their English and in the same time it will be a good way to use the right hemisphere.
According to Krashen, it is best to lower the student’s anxiety, in other words the affective filter, because this way, students will feel more comfortable and confident to perform English. However Swain disagreed with Krashen and explained anxiety could be regarded differently as the good anxiety, facilitative anxiety, and the bad anxiety, debilitative anxiety. Swain suggested that the facilitative anxiety could stimulate students to hold their learning motivation longer and that would help students to practice and improve English proficiency. According to my lesson plan, I think the main activity itself is triggers the students’ schemata and their motivation because the statements will be quite interesting to think about and playing cards will be fun. Also, every student will be talking without exception and they will have more freedom and feel less anxious and that is because they will be mostly talking in groups.
According to Krashen, students establish competence by comprehending input based on the “i+1 theory.” If the “i” stands for the input at the current level of competence, the “1” means the input slightly beyond the learner’s current level of competence. Therefore Krashen suggest that the best way for students to get input is to obtain input slightly higher than their own competence level and he also suggests the roughly-tuned method as the best-focusing on meaningful messages at the right level so that the learners can understand the language and this would lead to the acquisition automatically. If Krashen believes teachers should mostly concern on the “fluency” but, Swain suggests “accuracy and fluency” should be concerned equally important through his “Output Hypothesis.” Output hypothesis focuses on the “noticing gap” and the “leading edge” which means the lesson should be designed and the teachers should help students to realize what they don’t know and make those unstable, new forms internalized as their competence.
The language and the context should be slightly difficult for students and the whole discussion activity could be a challenge to some students. However, by encouraging the students to speak out and active in the discussion I think the students will have more chance to discover their lack of language. When students share their ideas in the whole class, I think this could be a good time for teachers to give feedback to students and reprocess their “leading edge.”
Conclusion
I really think I had learned many usefully things during the SMU-TESOL and I think the theories which I learned in the SLA course will be really useful to me when I will teach my future students because I will be able to examine the students’ level more specifically and what will be the right thing to teach in the right time. I think there are two important things for teachers to remember and that is patient and creative thinking. Being patient could be difficult for time to time and creative thinking could be a big task for teachers because although there are lots of great referential materials still it would be their job to find and develop their own teaching know-how.
Submitted by Ann
| Activity 2: | Discussion with a deck of cards |
| Summary
of the activity |
Time needed: 45 minutes
As the instruction, student will play cards to act their parts and they will discuss in their groups and share with the whole class about certain ideas of other countries. Students will eventually realize their own way of thinking about the cultural differences. |
| Language
objectives |
-Students will be able to
form an “effect and cause” sentence such as “I agree with the
statement because~” or “I disagree the statement because~.”
-The students will practice forming the present tense sentences. -Students will practice how to paraphrase and summarize other people’s words. |
| Culture
learning
objectives |
-Students will realize that
they have their own point of view in seeing the world.
-Students will be able to see how they think of certain countries and will gradually understand there are no “good” or “bad”, “better” or “worst” cultures, but all humans are equal and the same in the name of God. |
| Materials
needed
(with sample
materials attached below) |
-A deck of cards: 4 Kings, 4 Queens, 4 Jacks, 2 number 7 and 2 Jokers. |
| Step-by-step
Instructions |
|
| Special
notes for teacher |
The teachers should ask students
whether they know the meaning of “paraphrase” or “summarize.”
And the teachers should check the students’ comprehension whether
they understand the whole instruction properly.
The teachers should teach phrases like “no cheating”, “shuffle the cards”, “pick up a card”, “place the cards facing down” etc. |
| Source and references | www.eslcafe.com/idea:
Niki Mantas nmantas@whatcom.ctc.edu Whatcom Community College, Bellingham, WA |
I. Overview of the lesson
The title of the lesson is “James’ cooking diary”. The objective of this lesson is to help students explain their recipe in English using the vocabulary they learned in this lesson. This lesson is planned for a listening class. The age of the students is 15 and they are 1st grade of middle school. Student’s proficiency is Novice-high for speaking, listening, reading and Novice-mid for writing. The number of class will be about 15 students and this lesson is planned to use in a private institute. Students, who are eager to practice English, attend this class and expect to learn many useful expressions. Students who are taking this course have been taking English class for 1 year in a private language institute. Besides this class, they are barely exposed to native English speakers, and don’t have much opportunity to practice English outside the classroom. Students will learn simple present, past tense, regular, and irregular verbs through listening materials, and few activities using materials such as handout, Power-Point, poster and realia.
II. Theoretical justification of the activities
A. Right hemisphere participation
Brain assigns functions, which is called the “lateralization”, to left and right side of the brain. Left hemisphere of the brain controls intellectual, logical, and analytic junctions whereas right hemisphere of the brain mainly controls functions related to emotional and social needs and it is developed for artistic features, music and other needs. In the lesson plan, independent activity is designed to make learner’s right hemisphere to participate though students have to use the language, their left hemisphere.
In the independent activity, instead of writing down the vocabulary words for students to use in their activity, each vocabulary word is written on a colorful squared cut laminated paper with Velcro tape under so the students can stick or take off from a board. There are 30 names of the food they could use to make their own creative recipe. Students are allowed to take out the words and use them for their recipe. This will be a competition and there sure is a time limitation so students will have to be very serious. Throughout this process, students will use their right hemisphere of the brain to be more creative.
B. The Affective Filter, anxiety, and motivation
Comfortable environment will be provided for lower affective filter. A lowered affective filter allows the input to “strike deeper” and be acquired. However, class with no anxiety will let the students not participate and block the input for by calling each student for questions will help students to have a little anxiety.
In the middle of the lesson, students will be more motivate to the lesson when the teacher asks students personal questions related to cooking. For instance, “Have you cooked before?”, “Do you like cooking?”, “What was your favorite recipe?”. Student’s extrinsic motivation will increase when the teacher provide a prize for the group who create most delicious recipe. By putting the activity in a competition form, students themselves will have intrinsic motivation to win the game and satisfied for their achievements.
C. Input and Output
To make input comprehensible, teacher will use materials such as board, power-point, realia and a poster. Also teacher will ask personalized questions to activate students’ schemata for comprehensible input. Students will be listening to a tape and do fill in the blanks for their writing practice. Also students are asked to answer focus questions before and after listening to the tape. The corrects errors that the students makes, such as “I make sandwich yesterday.” to “I made a sandwich yesterday.”
III. Conclusion
Students need proper anxiety with lower affective filter to help them participate in class and which it can bring their intrinsic motivation into a higher level. Also, it is recommended for the teacher to prepare an activity that can actually make the students use their right hemisphere of the brain, so the students can learn the language not by analyzing its form.
This lesson plan is designed for novice-high students who are barely exposed to native speakers. Students practice their language and learn the grammar such as present, past tense, regular, and irregular verbs through controlled and independent activities. Maybe there are students with low risk-taking. For that, it is the teacher’s job to make those shy students participate in class by asking questions, doing some teach backs, or by T-S-S-T. The teacher should make the class comfortable environment for lower affective filter students with strong motivation.
Submitted by Katie
SLA Extra Credit Assignment
Overview of the lesson
The lesson that I will be analyzing is my final microteaching lesson plan. The lesson is designed for adults, at intermediate mid level of proficiency. The tile of the lesson is “Blood Type Personality Traits” and the materials are texts, pictures, and handouts. In step 7, the students brainstorm on the topic of what they first see in a person who they want to date with. In step 8, the students read the text in groups divided into their bloody types and discuss whether the personality traits by the 4 blood types are true for them or not. And at the end of the presentation, the students study the new vocabulary from the text. In step 9, the students match up their blood types with the personality traits in groups and make a chart of the percentages of the personality traits that were true to them by their blood types. In step 10, the students play a game called “Guess Who?” with a pack of laminated picture cards of famous people and the cartoon characters and even their own pictures to practice describing a person with the adjectives that they have learned and the other students will try to guess that person’s or that character’s blood types. In step 11 the students will do feedback with the teacher as a class and in step 12 the teacher ends the class with a closure.
Theoretical justification of the activities
A. Right hemisphere participation
The game in step 10 could be a good example in activating all the functions of the right hemisphere of the brain for the students. Although the students are all adults, who have passed puberty, where lateralization, the process of assigning functions to the left and right hemispheres of the brain, stops, they could learn to start learning the target language in this activity through activating the functions of their right hemispheres.
The laminated cards of pictures will activate the visualization function. For the students to play a game, they need to communicate with each other. This is to activate the social ability function. To describe a person’s or a character’s personality traits also requires the students’ creativity and imaginations, which are the other functions of the right hemisphere. Generally, the students will be either excited or happy about playing a game as an activity in classes. This activates the emotion function of the right hemisphere.
B. Affective Filter, anxiety, and motivation
The warm-up in step 7 could be a good example for Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis. When the students are asked to brainstorm on the topic of their personal criteria on the person who they want to date with, it definitely will interest them and will draw their attention. This is the low affective filter, in which an environment is created where there is low anxiety and thus, will eventually be the best situation for the students to acquire languages.
The anxiety that could arouse in the students through the activities of the guided practice in step 9, where the students are supposed to think about their personality traits and match them with their blood types within the limited time could be an example of facilitative anxiety. Facilitative anxiety is the positive anxiety that creates just the right amount of tension to the students in order for them to get their job done. In this activity, the students are not stressed about doing what they are supposed to do, since it is not a challenging work. However, the time limit is short, and therefore, they need to do it quickly, which an anxiety could be aroused, but a good one. Also, the activity is done in groups and therefore, the competitiveness between the students could be an another source for the facilitative anxiety
C. Input Hypothesis
The text could be an example for Krashen’s input hypothesis. It is not too difficult for the students’ level but just slightly difficult in words, such as conscientious and initiator, is a perfect exa