Thursday, January 6, 2011

Level A: Unit 5.1

Pre-Listening Activity: Cut the paper in two halves, descriptions and pictures. Break students into pairs and have them take turns reading descriptions and searching for their matches.


There's not a ton to say for this lesson, except that students enjoyed a spontaneous lesson on pronouncing TH. First, I used my teeth and tongue to demonstrate correct and incorrect TH pronunciation, showing students that if the tongue is between the teeth at the outset, it's correct; but if they only see teeth, it's not. Then, I asked them to give me a thumbs up or thumbs down to show if I had pronounced a word correctly. Lastly, I had students come up in rows and one by one say TH words in front of the class. Students in their seats had a chance to observe the visual and auditory manifestations of the sound and provide feedback (thumbs up or down) on whether or not their peers were correct. The activity was challenging at first, but students got the hang of seeing, hearing, and saying TH correctly. For those who truly struggled, I had them put a finger on their tongues so they remembered to keep them between their teeth until they uttered the sound. Students nearly fell of their chairs in delight.

Other than that, the grammar concepts were review for the students. The challenge is getting them to remember in natural speech. Blackboard races are always effective, though they get a little less engaging towards the end. Both the pre-listening activity and dicto-comp were novel concepts for the students and seemed engrossing.

Note on the dicto-comp. It is an MVP of exercises since it requires listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. Students listen to a passage three times. The first time they simply listen. The second time they listen and take notes. And the third they fill in holes in their notes and turn their notes into complete, grammatically correct sentences. The goal of the activity is to create replicas of the passage, exact in meaning and accuracy, but they don't have to be word-for-word. Students should pool their resources and work in groups.

And lastly, a self-evaluation...


*Pre-listening activity from http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish.

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