shape of grammar lesson plan (word)

Kinds of activities There are many kinds of activities and the teacher need to choose the right ones: - Vocabulary activities: Slap the board, what and where, network, kim’s game, hangma

Warm up 2

Presentation stage 4

Practice stage 8

Production stage 11



Warm Up

1.1

New words

1.2 New structure



Home work

2.1

Drills

or Controlled

practice

2.2

Less controlled practice

3.1

Free controlled practice

Grammar lesson plan

1

Presentation

2

Warm up

1 Definition

Short, easily activities which teacher uses at the beginning of the lesson to wake up students

2 Why warm-up activities are necessary for the lesson?

A warm-up activity is very necessary for the following reasons:

- With new classes at the beginning of the course or the school year, it can help students to know each other Once they have talked to each other, they will be less reluctant to co-operate in further activities

- If the teacher join in the activities and let the class know something about himself/ herself The students are more likely to accept him/ her as a person and not just as a teacher

- It wakes up the students and gets them into the right mood for learning English

- It can be brief vocabulary review before starting a new text

- It can be a link between what has gone before and what is coming

Most of the warming-up activities are suitable for beginners because they don’t demand more than simple questions and answers But the language content of the activities can easily be adapted to higher level of proficiency The teacher are probably the best judge of the appropriate of an activity for their students

3 Kinds of activities

There are many kinds of activities and the teacher need to choose the right ones:

- Vocabulary activities: Slap the board, what and where, network, kim’s game, hangman, brain storming…

- Grammar activities: Pelmanism, guessing game, interview, crosswords, tick-tac-toe, lucky number, knock out…

- Skills activities: Three adj/clusters, don’t say yes or no, evidence, express your view

- Mixed activities: Find someone who, survey…

4 How to use warm-up activities effectively?

Which activities should be used, it depends on your purpose/ the lesson or many factors:

- The size of the class

- Whether it is a class of adults or one of children

- The class level – elementary, pre-intermediate…

- the structures being studied at the moment

- The noise factors – will you disturb the classes around you?

- The students’ interest

- The equipment and material available

- The time available for an activity

5 What should the teacher do?

Once you have found a suitable activity for your class, you should do the following:

- Prepare your materials in sufficient quantity

- Read through the process of the activity and if it’s necessary, note down the main steps

- Think about how you are going to introduce the activity and whether your students will need any extra help

- Decide which role you are going to adopt (joining, helping or observing?) and stick to it throughout the activity

- Make a note of any problems arising as well as your own comments and those

of your students You can then modify the activity when you use it again

NOTE: Warming up activities may seem threatening to very shy students when one

person has to speak about himself in front of the whole class You can reduce the strain

by re-organizing the activity in such a way that the student concerned is questioned by the class thus avoiding a monologue where the pressure is on one person only Students often find pair works the least threatening because everybody is talking at the same time and they have only got one listener Depending on the atmosphere in your classes, you may wish to modify whole class activities to include pair or group work

Presentation stage

a Presenting vocabulary

I Definition

Vocabulary of a language is all its words, compounds and idioms used to convey and receive information in oral and written communication

II Kinds of vocabulary

*Active vocab: The words can understand, pronounce correctly, use effectively in speaking and writing

*Passive vocab: The words can recognize and understand in the context

III Some techniques for presenting a new word

1 Visuals

- Objects

- Pictures

- Drawings

- Charts, maps, diagrams…

2 Mime

Use your actions, body language

3 Realia

- Real objects

- Real people

- Real things

4 Example

Use the new word in different contexts

5 Explanation/ Situation

Teacher gives a detailed description of the new word to make Ss imagine the meaning

6 Synonym/ Anonym

Words with the same or opposite meaning to the new word

7 Translation

- What does this mean in Vienamese?

- How do you say it in Vietnamese?

IV How to teach a new word?

Presenting a new word need:

- Spoken form ® pronounce ® written form

- Present in meaningful contexts

- Check is essential

* Steps for presenting a new word

1 Eliciting

Teacher elicits the meaning of the word by using one of 7 above techniques

2 Models

Teacher models (pronouces) 2 or 3 times

3 Choral repetition

Students repeat chorally

4 Individual repetition

Students repeat individually (some students)

5 Teacher corrects mistakes (if necessary)

6 Teacher writes the word on the board

7 Teacher checks understanding/ mean/ stress…

IV Guidelines for presenting new vocabulary effectively

- Teacher elicits the words for different parts of the face Try to elicits each word: point to the feature on your face, ask teacher called, how to spell it

- Eliciting involves the class by focusing students’ attention This happen even if students don’t know the word being elicited

- Eliciting encourages students to draw on what they already know and don’t know

- Eliciting gives teachers a chance to see what students know or don’t know

- Teacher would not try to elicit all the time

V Do we present all vocabulary in the same way?

- I think the teacher should present all vocabulary in many different ways

It makes students enjoy and understand new words more and more

- If the teacher presents all vocabulary in the same way, it doesn’t bring effectively because students will feel boring and tired

- Each word has different meaning

a Presenting New structure

What activities do you use to present new language?

- Dialogue Build

- Rub Out and Remember

- Picture story

- Pictures

- Examples and grammatical explanation

- …

* Steps for presenting the model dialogue

• Set the scene

Show the characters and the situation

• Teacher says the dialogue one time

Teacher models one time, then asks students to repeat while writing on the board

• Practice saying the dialogue

Teacher ~ Students * Opened pairs (Group A ~ Group B) * Closed pairs (Student A ~ Student B) *

* Change roles

• Draw conclusion (model structure)

Write the model structure on the board

• Concept check

Checking: form, meaning, use and pronunciation/ intornation

* Concept Checking Questions

The questions must be:

• Simple + no difficult language

- Yes/no questions

- Alternative questions

- Simple 'wh' questions

• Don’t use new (target) grammar

• Use familiar vocabulary

• Use as many as possible

• Closely related to the target concept

• Avoid asking Do you understand? Or OK?

• Ask Is that clear? “Is that clear?” ” instead

Example1:

Look! They're painting the wall

Checking questions Answers

Is it happening now? Yes Can you see it? Yes

Is the painting finished? No Are they painting now? Yes

Is this the past, present or future? Present

Example2:

She's a shop assistant.

She works in a shop

Checking questions Answers Has she got a job ? Yes

Is she working now ? Don’t know Does she work there every day? Yes

Is this the past, present or future? Present

Example3:

If I won the lottery, I'd buy a new car

Checking questions Answers

Have I won the lottery? No

Am I going to win the lottery? Probably not

Am I going to buy a new car? Probably not Has he got a lottery ticket? Maybe

Is this real, or imaginary? Imaginary

Practice stage

After presentation stage is practice stage It ‘s an important stage

In this stage, Ss are made to practice the new language with the teacher

-Role of T: conductor, corrector the teacher does a lot of correction

Because Ss make a lot of mistakes when they have learnt the new language or new structure Mistakes are the sign of progress,

-The aim of stage: to get Ss to say the new language accurately through a process of controlled to less controlled activities

-Features: + Teacher talking time is short, T goes around the class to correct the Ss’ mistakes, reduces the errors

+ clear and realistic prompts

+ Ss talking time is long

-Type of activities: + T - Ss

+ S S (open pairs )

+ S S (close pairs )

-Degree of controlled: very controlled

-There are 2 parts in this stage: controlled practice and less- controlled practice

1 Controlled practice

This is stage at which learners are given intensive mechanical practice of the new structure under the teacher’s strict control so that they can produce sentences with correct forms of the structure and reduce the possibility of their error to the minimum

The common type of activity in this stage is the drill which help learners consolidate the forms of the structure and gain fluency in the reproduction of it

* There are many techniques which T can use

+ Repetition: Ss only repeat the model in chorus, in group, in pairs, individually or

vice versa

+ Substitution: word cues, picture cues: the cues may be given by the teacher first

then by learners themselves or cards, picture, actions

E.g T: There are 2 cars

S: There are 2 cars

+ Conversion or transformation: learners are given a sentence to transform in some

ways

E.g: from positive into negative or questions active into passive

E.g I have a car It’s red ->I have a car which is red (combination)

+ Matching: learners are given 2 columns of halves of sentence in disorder They

are supposed to select suitable pairs to make a correct sentence

Column 1 Column 2

He has got students of English they are a red car

+ Rearrangement: learners are given some groups of words in disorder to rearrange

into correct sentence Each group has enough words for one sentence

E.g got, car, he, new, has, a -> he has a new car

+ Questions and answer: this technique is for practicing the formation of question

and the way to answer it in pairs and groups or between teacher and learner

E.g: How many cars are there?

There are 31 cars

2 Less controlled practice

In this stage, learners are given opportunities to practice the use of new structure in situation close the real life They do the practice more freely and meaningfully, basing themselves on their opinion experience or knowledge of real life They focus

on meaning and use rather than on the accurate form of the structure

* There are some techniques used in this stage

a Guessing game

+ guessing my ………

Teacher write a gap- fill sentence on the BB for the sentence to complete The class ask Yes/No question to guess what the gaps are

e.g I like………

S1: Do you like singing?(no)

S2: Do you like fishing ?(yes)

The one who win then comes to the front and the game goes on

+ guessing place and action

+ twenty questions

b Find some one who ………

T put a table on the BB, the Ss copy it They stand up, ask each others questions When they find some one who say ‘yes’, they fill in the name

c Noughts and crosses

Ss play in pairs The first one to get a straight line of 3 noughts or 3 crosses is the winner

d Mapped dialogue

the teacher puts a dialogue on the bb using only pictures The T ‘models’ the dialogue, pointing to each picture in turn

the T runs through the cues like a drill with the whole class to make sure they know what to say at each picture

The Ss practice the dialogue in pairs

e Chain game

The Ss get into groups The first S starts the chain by repeating a sentence the T has given S2 repeats what S1 has said and adds to it, S3 repeats what s2 and s2 have said then add to it

There are numerous activities which can be used for this stage including gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations, split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires, reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures

• It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage as students have only just met the new language Many student's books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be used at this stage

• When teaching the 2nd conditional, I would use split sentences as a controlled practice activity I give students lots of sentence halves and in pairs they try and match the beginnings and ends of the sentences

Example: "If I won the lottery," … "I'd travel around the world "

• I would then do a communicative follow up game like pelmanism or snap using the same sentence halves

- Conclusion

When teaching grammar, there are several factors we need to take into consideration and the following are some of the questions we should ask ourselves:

• How useful and relevant is the language?

• What other language do my students need to know in order to learn the new structure effectively?

• What problems might my students face when learning the new language?

• How can I make the lesson fun, meaningful and memorable?

Although I try to only use English when teaching a grammar lesson, it is sometimes beneficial to the students to make a comparison to L1 in the presentation stage This is particularly true in the case of more problematic grammatical structures which students are not able to transfer to their own language

It is also important to note that using the PPP model does not necessarily exclude using a more inductive approach since some form of learner centre guided discovery could be built into the presentation stage When presenting the 2nd conditional I sometimes present the language in context and then give the students a worksheet with a series of analysis questions to do in pairs

Production stage

Production stage is the last stage of a grammar lesson, after presentation and practice stages It often lasts about 8 (or 10) minutes but it’s very important Because:

- This is where the students produce the new language the have learnt on their own (without the teacher)

- At this stage, practice is not controlled by the teacher, students work by themselves or work with partner This stage is more free than the other stages

So students have an opportunity to talk about the things which they like, base on teacher’s instruction

- Production stage can be the transitional stage from pre-communicative activities

to the communicative activities of the language teaching learning process

- At this stage, the new language which students have learnt becomes students’ knowledge

* Teacher roles

- Teacher monitor and make a note of any errors so that teacher can build in class feedback and error analysis at the end of the lesson

- Teacher should limit the time

- Teacher shouldn’t interrupt because:

+ At this stage, fluency is more important than accuracy

+ If you stop students and correct, students may be forget what they are talking about

* What can teacher do?

Teacher’s job in this stage is to reduce control, encourage students to find out what they can do with the items they’ve learnt, help them use it to express their own content when this happens, students will realize the usefulness of the items/ form/ structure they’ve learnt

* What do students have to do?

In this stage, students do many kinds of activities

Students can work:

- Individually: speaking, writing about a topic, personal idea…

- Pair work/ group work: role play, discussion, argument, problem solving… Students usually talk about:

- The real life such as daily life, house, school, friends…

- The students’ imagination which is not in the real life

Teacher should choose the activities which is suitable for students’ level

The meaningful activities will give students chances to practice the language more freely