2nd Lesson Plan 2009 - Task-based Lesson Plan - Final Version- Tefl2teens

Methods II – LCB TTC Task-based Lesson Plan. Process Writing. Third Draft Alejandra de Antoni – 2009

This a Task-Based Lesson Plan. The aim of the lesson is for students to carry out a task to learn English. Learners doing tasks (i.e. focusing on meanings) will be making free use of whatever English they can recall to express the things that they really want to say or write in the process of achieving the task. There will be a moment, however, in which students will focus on language so as to enhance their performance in doing the task. NB: What is a task? A task is an activity in which the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome. Task-based Lesson Plan – Process Writing – 3rd Step The Task: Students are put in pairs or small groups of three and are given a sheet to create a quiz to test their partners’ (another pair) general knowledge. They have to create 12 questions and provide the correct and true answers. The first 9 questions are prompted and the other 3 are going to be completely created by them. Aims: o By the end of the lesson students will have created a quiz to test their partners’ general knowledge. o By the end of the lesson students will have worked on their general knowledge of the world using the target language as a means to exchange information as well as do something that they actually do outside the classroom (answering quizzes is a very well-known pastime). Outcome: The expected outcome is a 12-question quiz to test their partners’ general knowledge. Students must also know its answers. Evaluation Criteria: Peer Evaluation: o The quiz must have 12 true-to-life questions with their corresponding answers, which should be based on reality. This will be checked after the lesson, for homework, by the students themselves. Each pair of students will take home another quiz to check it (no one will correct his own but some other pair’s quiz). o When students ask and answer the quizzes. If they understand each other’s questions and can answer them, it means that they are accurately enough written for the listener to understand them. In addition, students will take the quizzes home so as to check both content and form. One pair reads the quiz they created to other pair 1

Methods II – LCB TTC Task-based Lesson Plan. Process Writing. Third Draft Alejandra de Antoni – 2009

for them to answer it. Then, they swap roles. It’s a listening activity: the pair answering the quiz is listening to it (it’s read by the pair that created it). Introducing the Task to the Students: The teacher tells the students that they are going to create a quiz to test their general knowledge. The quiz will be created in pairs and they will use it to test another pair’s general knowledge. It will be real fun because they will be able to show the rest how much they know about the world. It may be a lot of fun as well because, in general, within a classroom students may know different (and sometimes peculiar) facts and it is really interesting to share them. Pre-Task (Getting Ready): The students answer the Music Quiz on page 20 (New English File PreIntermediate, Student’s Book. See Appendix). To do it, they will carry out Exercise 1 (the three parts and in pairs. The teacher monitors them). Once they do the three activities, they check answers with the whole class. The teacher selects four questions and writes them on the board. Two of the questions with auxiliaries (e.g.: questions 1 and 8) and the other two without them (e.g.: 7 and 9). The teacher asks the students to focus on the two sets and to try to explain the difference between them. The teacher guides them asking them to focus on the functions that the wh-words have in each of the sets. Task Cycle: Students are given the photocopy to carry out the task. They are first asked to complete the questions (in pairs or groups of three). The teacher tells the students that they must know the answers because they will need to be able to decide whether or not the pair they test (the testing will be done orally: the pair answering the quiz will only be listening to it while the one that created it will be read it for them to listen) has passed the quiz or not. There will be dictionaries and encyclopaedias available and if that is not possible, the students will ask the teacher for help with any vocabulary doubt. Having access to the Internet would be ideal but it is not essential, of course. Post-task: Students concentrate on form. The teacher tells them that the quizzes are going to be published online (the class blog) for other people to answer them. To get the quizzes ready, the teacher asks the students to exchange quizzes so as to correct and edit any language problems. (This will be done in class to check both content and form and the teacher will monitor them so as to make sure that any problems and mistakes are corrected).

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Methods II – LCB TTC Task-based Lesson Plan. Process Writing. Third Draft Alejandra de Antoni – 2009

APPENDIX: 1. The Task (adapted from Communicative Activity 2-C; New English File Pre-intermediate Teacher’s Book; OXFORD University Press)

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Methods II – LCB TTC Task-based Lesson Plan. Process Writing. Third Draft Alejandra de Antoni – 2009 2. The Pre-Task (Music Quiz taken from the New English File Pre-Intermediate Student’s Book, page 20; OXFORD University Press)

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