Lesson Plan



Lesson Plan

|Teacher: Constantine Kourakis |Observer: Barbara Chamberlin |

|Date: 07/12/2017 |Duration of Lesson: 1 h |Level: Upper Intermediate – General English |

| |9:45 am – 10:45 am | |

|Background Information of Student(s): |

| |

|This is a general English, upper-intermediate class consisting of 8 students. All of them are very engaged and eager to improve their English|

|therefore they do not hesitate to ask questions. They particularly need to develop their lexical range. For the purposes of the observation |

|as part of the Diploma course, I am only teaching this class for a week having taken over from the other teacher. The following information |

|on each student is based on my own and the other teacher’s observations. |

| |

|Andrea, 23, is Italian and currently learning study skills. He needs a little more time to internalise new grammatical structures or lexis. |

|He’s an active class member. |

|Giorgia, 24, is Italian and possesses good comprehension skills, but lacks confidence at times. |

|Guillemette, 17, is French and has got good study skills and adequate awareness of English. |

|Joanna, 23, is Polish. She lacks confidence has got weak accuracy, but likes to be corrected. |

|Ozge, 22, comes from Turkey. She is strong with good fluency and great listening skills. |

|Rodrigo, 18, is from Spain. He is great at applying knowledge to new structures and using his L1 to internalise or remember lexis and |

|grammatical points. |

|Valentine, 18, is French and has good awareness of the English language. She also self-corrects. |

|Xiaogiao, 26, is Chinese but lives in Germany. Altogether, she’s a strong student. |

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|Focus of lesson: |

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|Gradable & extreme adjectives and respective intensifiers |

|Teaching aims: |

|Primary: |

|To teach a useful grammatical point not included in the syllabus; the usefulness thereof is indicated by the broad use of the |

|gradable/extreme adjectives and intensifiers in the exam classes (e.g. IELTS, CAE) and the need for greater accuracy in the high-level |

|classes |

|To teach students new lexis or, as applicable, prompt them to access and use their passive vocabulary; additionally, my decision to teach |

|this TL has also been informed by the students’ weakness of not using any adverbs or their tendency to say, for example, “very, very hot” |

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|Secondary: |

|To offer practice in pronunciation of certain difficult lexical items |

|To target the usually neglected kinaesthetic teaching element |

|Learning outcomes: |

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|Primary: |

|By the end of the lesson, the students: |

|will have acquired grammatical awareness of a significant number of gradable and non-gradable (extreme) adjectives and of the respective |

|intensifying adverbs |

|will have enriched their lexical database with new adjectives and intensifying adverbs or, as applicable, will have made use of known |

|adjectives in conjunction with known adverbs from their passive vocabulary |

| |

|Secondary: |

|By the end of this lesson, students: |

|will have practised the pronunciation of any new or problematic lexis |

|Aids & Materials: |

|Own written practice tasks |

|1 game of my own design |

|HW: New Headway Advanced, Oxford, p. 94 |

|Assumptions: |

|The students must be familiar with the meaning of most, if not all, adjectives to be used throughout my lesson, which should help me focus on|

|their grammatical usage in relation to the intensifying adverbs. |

|They should also be able to comprehend the concept of gradable and extreme adjectives and their intensity in relation to one another (e.g. |

|cold v. freezing). |

|Personal aims: |

|To teach Grammar as part of my aim to touch upon as many skills and systems as possible during my observations |

|Timetable fit: |

|Given that I am merely a temporary teacher, I would like to go off-the-book with this class. |

|As part of my vocabulary sessions with this class, I will be offering a holiday-related vocabulary task right before the observed lesson to |

|enable students to activate their passive vocabulary. Furthermore, last week the students were introduced to the phonemic chart so this is a |

|great opportunity for them to practise decoding the phonemic transcriptions of any problematic words, while yesterday I taught them how to |

|compose informal and formal emails, the former of which relates to Task C (see Appendix 3). |

|Following this lesson, there can be further focus on the collocations that are specifically comprised of an adverb and an adjective e.g. |

|bitterly disappointed, seriously injured to expand students’ lexical range and improve their accuracy. |

|Summary of previous assessed lessons: |

|The previous observation was at a CAE class focussing on the Speaking component. |

|Anticipated issues: |Solutions: |

|The students might mistakenly perceive the gradable and extreme |I will quickly dispel any such confusion by noting that in this case, |

|adjectives as similar to, or same as, the comparative-superlative |there is no comparison between two or more objects/people. |

|form of adjectives. | |

|A student may not be aware of the meaning of a gradable/non-gradable|Cross-check with other students, CBQs and CCQs as required. |

|adjective that comes up in the task. | |

|Students may not know the meaning of “fairly” and/or “utterly”. |I will explain the meaning through synonyms (“quite” and “completely”, |

| |respectively) to help them complete the group task (see below). |

|Approx. Time |Interaction |Stage Aim |Procedure |Rationale |

|1 |T-S |To inform Ss of today’s |First of all, I will state the lesson’s focus, |To give Ss some |

| | |teaching focus |namely adjectives and adverbs. |orientation |

| | | | | |

| | |To set the context (holiday &|I will give Ss a world map and ask them to talk in| |

|3-4 |S-S |weather) |pairs about a memorable holiday and particularly, | |

| | | |about the weather and the temperature at the | |

| | | |holiday destination. | |

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| | | |Before class FB, I will draw a scale on the board.| |

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| | | |Class FB: Based on the students’ experiences, I | |

| | | |will place the temperature-related gradable | |

| | |To establish the concept of |adjectives (e.g. cold, hot etc.) supplied by them | |

| | |gradable and extreme adj. and|on the scale through elicitation. Moving on to the| |

|5 |S-T |familiarise Ss therewith |extreme adj., if no “freezing” destination has | |

| |T-S | |been mentioned during class FB, I will tell them I| |

| | | |have been to Iceland and ask them what the | |

| | | |temperature is like there. I should elicit | |

| | | |“freezing” (if not, I will supply it) and, guided | |

| | | |by the students, will place it at the bottom end | |

| | | |of the scale. Same procedure for “boiling” in | |

| | | |connection with, say, Dubai (top end of the | |

| | | |scale). In case Ss are not aware of “boiling”, I | |

| | | |will supply the term. | |

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| | | |Through CBQs, I will establish the concept of the | |

| | | |gradable and extreme adjectives and, if possible, | |

| | | |the names of the two categories of adj. | |

| | | |CBQs (gradable): | |

| | | |Can the weather be very hot? Y | |

| | | |Can it be a little hot? Y | |

| | | |Very warm? Y | |

| | | |A bit cold? Y | |

| | | |CBQs (extreme): | |

| | | |Can it be a bit freezing? N | |

|2 |T-S | |Can it be very boiling? N | |

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| | | |I will give Ss enough time to take notes and copy | |

| | | |from the board. | |

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| | | |Written Task A | |

| | | |Show Task A, give instructions and stress that Ss | |

| | | |should write the answers in pairs of a gradable | |

|2-3 | | |and the respective extreme adj.; set time limit, |I believe I have trained |

| | | |monitor, class FB through turn-taking and |Ss to stay focussed on me |

| | | |cross-check. I will ask Ss to provide the answers |and the board and wait |

| | | |in pairs of gradable-extreme adj. During class FB,|until I have explained |

| | | |I will mark any mispronounced adjectives to be |everything I need before |

| | | |drilled afterwards. I will also check the meaning |they take any notes. |

| | |To practise today’s TL and |of random adjectives through CCQs. For instance: | |

| | |enable Ss to internalise the |If a phone is exorbitant, can I afford it? N |There are a total of 32 |

| | |adj. in pairs for longer | |adj. which means 16 pairs |

| | |retention |Drilling |so each student can |

| | | |Ask students to turn over their sheets to prepare |provide 2 during class FB.|

|10-12 |S-T | |for choral and individual drills. |Asking them to record and |

| | | | |provide the adj. in pairs |

| | | | |helps them internalise the|

| | | | |adj. faster and retain |

| | | |TL – Part 2 |them in their memory. |

| | | |I will explain to Ss the role of intensifying | |

| | | |adverbs and that there are certain adverbs that go| |

| | | |with the gradable (grading adverbs) and extreme | |

| | | |adjectives (non-grading adverbs). To that end, I | |

| | | |will draw a set of 2 columns, one on the left and | |

| | | |one on the right of the board for the Ss to place |Turning over the sheets |

| | | |the adverbs that go with the gradable and the |takes the attention away |

| | |To enable Ss to practise the |extreme adjectives. I will then split the Ss into |from the written task and |

| | |pronunciation of any |two teams of 4, give them a set of adverbs on |helps Ss focus on |

| | |problematic lexical items. |paper (see Appendix 2) and ask them to work |listening and reproducing,|

| | | |together to place them in the respective column |through imitation, the new|

| | | |(“really” and “quite” fit both categories). Set |lexical items with the |

| | |To establish Part 2 of TL, |time limit, monitor and class FB. Finally, I will |correct pronunciation. |

| | |namely the intensifying |note the difference to sentence stress in | |

|2 |T-S |adverbs, in conjunction with |connection with “quite”. | |

| | |the adjectives. | | |

| | | |Written Task B (see Appendix 1) | |

| | | |Show Ss the task, give instructions, set time | |

| | | |limit, monitor, pair check and class FB (student | |

| | | |nomination). During the class FB, I will randomly | |

| | | |ask Ss to confirm whether that adjective is | |

|5 |T-S | |gradable or extreme and what the respective | |

| |S-S | |adjective is. This part will serve as a further | |

| | | |concept-checking tool and practice. | |

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| | | |Personalised written task (see Appendix 3) | |

| | | |Give Ss a gap-fill task that resembles a short | |

| | | |informal email to a friend and ask them to fill it| |

| | | |in with some of today’s adjectives and adverbs | |

| | | |based on their own holiday-related experiences; | |

| | | |Afterwards, I will proceed to class FB. | |

| | | | |This task recycles the |

| | | | |adj. from Task A. In doing|

| | | | |so, it helps Ss to include|

| | | | |the adj. in their active |

| | |To enable Ss to choose the | |vocabulary and focus on |

| | |correct intensifier and also | |the adv. exclusively. |

| | |recycle the gradable/extreme |Game (time permitting) | |

| | |adjectives used in Task A. |Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the board, elicit name | |

| | | |of the game and ask Ss to draw a nine-box grid in | |

| | | |their notebook. | |

| | | |Explain to Ss that they need to write one |Personalisation is a major|

| | | |adjective in each square and stress, by way of |factor in language |

| | | |example, that they cannot have both the gradable |acquisition and vocabulary|

| | | |and the extreme adjective in their grid (hot OR |retention. |

| | | |boiling, not both hot AND boiling). |The reason for keeping the|

|5-8 |S-S |To enable Ss to further |Give Ss time to complete their table. |holiday theme is to |

| |S-T |consolidate today’s TL within|When ready, I will start listing adjectives while |maximise the contextuality|

| | |the same context (i.e. |I write down their pair in a list against which I |of today’s lesson and |

| | |holiday) and incorporate it |am going to check the winning grid. |tasks. |

| | |into their cognitive database| | |

| | |by means of personal |Alternative game (in case of time constraints) | |

| | |experiences and anecdotes; |If there is no time for the game above, I will | |

| | |also, to enable Ss to use |give Ss a ball and like in open class FB, they | |

| | |more adj. from Task A. |will throw it to each other while I ask the person| |

| | | |holding the ball to provide me with the respective| |

| | |To provide further practice |adj. | |

| | |and finish practising today’s| | |

| | |TL on a more cheerful note. |Homework | |

| | | |Tasks 3, 5 and 6 (see Appendix 4) | |

|5-8 |S-T | | | |

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|5-8 |T-S | | | |

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|2-3 |T-S | | | |

| |S-S | | | |

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|1 |T-S | | | |

Appendix 1

GRADABLE and EXTREME adjectives

A. Put the adjectives below under the correct heading. “good” has been done as an example.

ancient, angry, bad, big, brilliant, clever, delicious, delightful, devastated, dirty, enormous, excellent, exorbitant, expensive, exhausted, fascinating, filthy, funny, furious, gorgeous, handsome, hilarious, horrible, interesting, old, pleasant, small, tasty, tiny, tired, upset

|GRADABLE |EXTREME |

|good | |

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B. Which adverb(s) can we use with the following adjectives?

1. The cruise was very / really / absolutely fascinating.

2. The service at the restaurant was fairly / absolutely / quite bad.

3. We’re not going out tonight; we’re very / extremely / totally tired.

4. The price of the package holiday is fairly / very / totally exorbitant.

5. She’s very / quite / absolutely hilarious and every holiday with her is so much fun.

6. I was utterly / very / completely devastated to hear they’re going on holiday without me.

7. Running into an old friend on my holiday was a really / very / completely pleasant surprise.

8. The entire holiday plan was utterly / extremely / very brilliant.

Appendix 2

VERY

FAIRLY

REALLY

ABSOLUTELY

QUITE

EXTREMELY

COMPLETELY

UTTERLY

TOTALLY

Appendix 3

C. Fill in the email with your own ideas using adjectives and adverbs.

Hey!

How u doing? I just got back from my holiday in _____________. I had a(n) _____________ _________________ time! The hotel room was _____________ ______________ and complained to the reception, but everything else was fine. During the day I visited some ______________ _____________ monuments which date back to the 5th and 6th century. The food was to die for! Dinner was _______________ ___________________ wherever I ate. I also met a _______________ __________________ guy/girl – I’ll tell u more when we meet up next weekend.

Take care,

__________________

Appendix 4

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