Bridge TEFL Module 6.

20121207 Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Bridge TEFL. Module 6.

Hello good people and fellow teachers of a language other than English.
There are many aspects to language: humour, seriousness, soliloquy, sarcasm, just to name a few. A comedian once quipped that English is impossible to learn, it must be memorised.
So once again, I pretend to be sincere while being disingenuous to the good people at Bridge TEFL for their wonderful charade of insincerity.

As the good people at Bridge TEFL said in the final lessons: Please compare your answer to this example and provide your own assessment.

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o   Lexis

o   Phonics

o   Function

Date                      Level – Primary 1 (age 6 – 8)       Duration – 1 hour.

What is the Weather Like Today?

This lesson is typical for level one to three (ages 6 to 8) and introduces concepts about the weather, days of the week and temperature.  It can be used as a lead-in for calendar, counting, use of numbers, what clothes to wear.  Grammar subjects such as present and future can be explored.

Lesson type and subject:

·         Vocabulary and Grammar.

Materials:

Recording of the weather report for the week. MP3 or CD.  Suitable means to play recording.

Worksheets with days of the week.

PowerPoint or flash cards with new vocabulary words and meanings.

Lesson Objectives:

Teaching the subjective descriptions of weather: sunny, raining, cloudy and fine.

Teaching the quantative measurement of temperature.

Assumptions:

Students will be familiar with the General Reading text regarding weather.

Students will be familiar with the order of the days of the week.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

Problem: - RSVP – Rhythm, Speed, Volume and Pitch.

Solution: - The rate of speech on the recording will be slower than normal radio presenters.  A rate of 0.8 on media player is usually sufficient.

Problem: - Initially overwhelmed by information.

Solution: - Reassure the students that the recording will be played several times.

Problem: - Pronunciation of Sunny vs Sunday.

Solution: - One on one practice with the problem students.

Presentation.

Duration: 10 minutes

Activity.

Introduce the new vocabulary: Sunny, Fine, Cloudy, Raining and Typhoon.

Introduce the weather by eliciting a response “What is the weather like today?

Write a few of the different ways that this question is asked in English:

·         How’s the weather.

·         Is it a nice day outside?

·         What is the weather like where you are?

The weather report is on the radio after the news every hour.  Draw a picture of a radio on the board.

Show the Hong Kong weather web site as an authentic example of how to check the weather.

The website has a simple chart showing the day of the week and a symbol to represent the forecast.

Elicit a response from the class asking:

• what will the weather be like on a random sample of days.
• if they have seen the weather website.
• if their parents use the website.
• if they used the website to see what the weather will be like for an important event in the next week e.g. the school picnic or sports day.

Practice.

Duration: 20 minutes.

Distribute the worksheets with a personal greeting.

Referring to the worksheet, elicit a response regarding the weather on Sunday.

Elicit a response – “What will the weather be like on Monday?”

Elicit a response – what will the weather be like on Tuesday?  We don’t know!.  How can we find out?.

Lets listen to the weather report on the radio.

Production.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Reassure the students that the weather report will be played a few times and that there is no need to hurry. 

Start the recording that has 15 seconds of quiet time – during the 15 seconds, pretend to tune the picture of the radio to the news station.

After the first sentence, pause and elicit a response – can you hear?, is it too fast? – adjust if needed.

Replay the recording from the start and elicit a response from a random student – what will the weather be like on Thursday?, ask another student – “Is that correct?”

If there is an incorrect answer or it the answer is unknown – then elicit a response asking how they could find out.  Wait for an answer like – listen to the weather report and then use this prompt to replay the recording.  Replay the recording as needed or often as time permits.

Assessment and final discussion.

Elicit a response from the class for a self correction exercise.

See each student personally and elicit a response for a few of the entries and reward them with a stamp on their worksheet.

Follow up lesson:

What clothes do I wear today?

Use the weather information on the worksheets to prompt for a discussion about what clothes the students would wear according to the weather. 

Elicit a response to the class on what will you wear on Wednesday? 

Why would you wear that?

What is the weather like today.

Listen to the report to hear what will it be like for the week.

Listen for - Sunny, Fine, Cloudy, Raining and Typhoon 1.

  

Day	Temperature	Weather
Sunday	26° C	Cloudy
Monday	28° C
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Weather report.

Script:

• Now here is the weather report for this week:

• Sunday, the temperature will be 26 degrees and it will be cloudy.
• On Monday, it will be 28 degrees and sunny.
• Tuesday, the temperature will be 25 degrees and it will be cloudy.
• Wednesday, the temperature will be 23 degrees and it will be rainy.
• Thursday, it will be rainy and the temperature will be 22 degrees.
• Friday, the temperature will be 26 degrees and there will be a typhoon level one.
• Saturday, the temperature will be 27 degrees and it will be fine.

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Instructor's comments:


Listening:
Very nice work.  Your choice of activities demonstrates your ability to handle the unique demands of teaching the skill of listening. The recording you´ve chosen, the activities you´ve created, and the problems you´ve anticipated show your experience with this level of student and your skill at creating appropriate listening lessons for them.  Your warm-up ensures that students will be prepared for the listening and your additional listening tasks are appropriate for them.  It was particularly nice to see that you include a follow-up activity that gives students the chance to reinforce new language in an interesting way.

Reading:
Well done!  Your selection of material and activities shows a sensitivity to your students´ levels and interests as well as an understanding of how to create an excellent reading lesson.  Your lesson flows well from introduction to gist questions to more detailed questions.  It was particularly nice to see your class ending with an activity getting the students to use their new language in a practical, personal way  that involves other skills.