Lita Brusick Johnson LING 594 Internship Date: April 12, 2013

Team Teaching, April 12, 2013 Length of Class: 50 minutes Setting: University Level: Intermediate

Class Profile: Timetable Fit:

There are 15 students in the class, seven males and eight females, from seven countries. They are between 18-25 years of age. Their goal is to improve their English to the point that they will be able to attend a university in the U.S. This lesson comes toward the beginning of a semester-long course for ESL students who are at the intermediate proficiency level. The desired outcome of this ESL program is for students to increase overall communicative competence. The program as a whole seeks to integrate learning in all four skills -- reading, writing, listening and speaking using an interactive approach. The course has a very broad thematic framework, with integrated learning skills development. This is the second class in the unit with the theme, About People. Its focus on vocabulary building and reading. 1. 2. 3. Students learn a variety of adjectives to describe personal characteristics and are able to use them in context. Students learn how personal characteristic adjectives can be applied to things and become familiar with frequently used collocations. Students are able to utilize what they have learned in context (conversation and in writing - through homework). AIM Students know class schedule and learning outcomes Students activate schemata (content, vocabulary) to prepare for vocabulary building and reading tasks Students are able to read for comprehension and are able to answer questions about content. Students are able to identify positive and negative personal characteristic adjectives. Student: learn the meaning of more complex personal characteristic adjectives; are able to use them to describe people P: Technical difficulties; S: Computer backup
PROBLEMS/ SOLUTIONS

Objective

TIME 2 min. 5 min.

STAGE Setting the Context Warm-up

PROCEDURES 1. Walk through how class-time will flow and general learning outcomes (on whiteboard) 1. Students view five images related to personal characteristic adjectives and brainstorm 2. Write on board and discuss 1. Students read the story aloud (as a class). 2. Students underline target form (adjectives describing characters in the story). 3. Students discuss whether the adjectives are positive or negative by filling in a chart with their partner. 4. Class fills out a chart determining whether the adjectives are positive or negative and discusses their meanings. 1. Focus on vocabulary: 20 personal character adjectives. Distribute interview handout and talk about ways to describe a person. Explain pairs exercise. (2 min) 2. Pairs Interview Exercise (10 min) Each student in a pair fills out one interview form (20 questions) gathering a description of the other students best friend.

INTERACTION Class Class

MATERIAL

Comments

PowerPoint

12 min

Reading comprehension (adjectives in context)

Class Pair Class Class

Handout 1: Reading exercise

18 min.

Interview exercise using personal characteristic adjectives

P: Could take a bit longer; S: Final collocation activity can be shortened or put off until

Handout 2: Interview form Dry erase markers

Pairs

Lita Brusick Johnson LING 594 Internship

Team Teaching, April 12, 2013

the next day

5 min

Vocabulary practice: Chain of adjectives

Vocabulary words are recycled in student-produced speech

6 min.12 min.

Focus on collocations

Students: become knowledgeable of how personal characteristic adjectives are often also used to describe things; become familiar with several frequent collocations of such adjectives and can use them

2 min.

Wrap-up Homework

Homework: Students are able to write a paragraph about themselves that could be used in a letter to describe their positive traits, using target vocabulary

The process is reversed within the pair. 3. Each student writes on the whiteboard the top five adjectives that describe the others best friend. Each shares orally what these are and tells the story about which is the most important characteristic and why. (6 min) 1. The students sit in a circle. Teachers model game. 2. One student begins by describing him/herself with an adjective/trait and gives a reason for the trait. That student then calls on another student, who either agrees that he/she shares the trait and gives another reason -- or disagrees and says that he/she doesnt share this trait and gives a reason. The chain goes on with that student calling on another student and so on. 1. Review of collocations and description of how the same personal characteristic adjectives appear in frequently-used collocations but are used to describe things. Model different usages of same adjective. 2. Time permitting, student generate sentences using collocations (and/or matching exercise with some common collocations). 3. If time is inadequate, note that class will be coming back to this tomorrow 1. Sum up value of personal characteristic adjectives 2. Describe homework

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Handout 3: Collocations

Pair

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