CELTA Assignment 3 – Skills Related Tasks (A3SRT)

Gail Fish (Student ID No: 080223711)

Word Count: 1138

 CELTA Assignment 3 – Skills Related Tasks (A3SRT)

1. I have chosen to use an authentic reading text with the Upper Intermediate
group of students I am currently working with during my teaching practice
lessons. This is a news article about ‘space tourism’ from the BBC website. I
think the students would find the topic interesting and quite unusual, thus
heightening their motivation to read. This text also exposes them to the type
of authentic language that they could encounter in the ‘real world’, outside the
classroom. I think the text is appropriate for the Upper Intermediate group of
students because it is quite challenging for them, but not excessively. They
will encounter several new words in the text and I would pre-teach some, but
not all of these, as this would deny them the chance to understand natural
written English for themselves (Harmer 2007: 272). The lesson aims to
develop students’ reading comprehension skills, in that it will enable them to
make sense of an authentic text as independently as possible, without
attempting to understand every single word (Scrivener 2005: 184).

A lot of detail is contained within the text, which can be utilised in my tasks
both before the students read and during the gist and detailed comprehension
stages. The text also presents the opportunity for communicative discussion
as a follow-up task, giving the students the chance to exchange their thoughts
and opinions with each other after reading it.

2. Following a brief personalised lead-in focusing on modes of transport

students have used to travel on holiday in the past, I would introduce a
prediction task for the students to do before they read the text. This is a very
student-centred activity which creates interest in the content of the text and
“activates schemata” (Harmer 2007: 271). I would tell the students that they
are going to read a text, and that I want them to predict, or guess what it will
be about. I will provide clues, consisting of two pictures of the spacecraft
mentioned in the text (see figure 1 – the mothership, ‘Eve’, and figure 2 – the
spacecraft, ‘SpaceShipTwo’), and some key words and numbers written on
the board. These will include ‘spacecraft’ (I would make the students aware
that they can see spacecraft in the pictures), ‘tourists’, ‘Earth’, ‘family’, ‘18’
and ‘100,000’ (see board plan). I would then ask the students to discuss their
ideas in groups about the possible content of the text they are about to read,
and this will heighten their interest in the text itself.

3. After conducting a brief feedback with the class about their predictions, I
would give the students the text and ask them to read it to find out if their
predictions were indeed correct. The students now have a reason for reading,
and Harmer (2007: 271) argues that, “prediction is vitally important if we want
students to engage fully with the text”. I would encourage the students not to
try to understand everything, but to read quickly whilst looking for the ‘clues’
they have been given, and to find out the significance of the words and
numbers in the context of the text. The students would read individually and
then in pairs to discuss their understanding of the text in comparison to their
earlier predictions. This is a “Type 1” task, so the students are reading for
general understanding (Harmer 2007: 270). The task is therefore designed to
develop the students’ sub-skill of reading for gist, or “skimming” (Scrivener
2005: 185, 187; Watkins 2005: 58). I would have a picture of Richard
Branson available to show the students during the task if they do not know
who he is (figure 3).

4. By this stage of the lesson, the students have a general understanding of

the content of the text. The text contains several words that will probably be
new to them, so before setting a more detailed comprehension task it would
be necessary to pre-teach some vocabulary. I would focus only on the key
vocabulary the students require to fulfil the task, pre-teaching words such as
‘maiden’, ‘sub-orbital’, ‘aerospace’, ‘hangar’, ‘mothership’, ‘hybrid rocket’,
‘thorough’ and ‘excursion’. It is possible to do more in-depth vocabulary tasks
with this text. However, the next task focuses on comprehension.

My second while-reading task is a “Type 2” task, during which the students

will answer questions aimed at developing the sub-skill of reading for detailed
comprehension (Harmer 2007: 270). Students would be divided into ‘A’ and
‘B’ (two at each table), the two groups answering six questions individually.
All of the ‘A’ questions would be the same, and likewise for the ‘B’ questions.
The paragraphs in the text are numbered 1-6. The As would answer
questions about paragraphs one, three and five, and the Bs paragraphs two,
four and six, so that they are doing jigsaw reading. I would cut up the text and
give students their paragraphs and questions on coloured pieces of paper
(pink for A and green for B) in random order, thus making them read their
paragraphs more closely in order to find the section of text containing each
answer. This makes the task more interactive. The students would then
compare answers with the same-lettered person at their table, allowing them
to share knowledge and ideas, therefore consolidating their learning. Finally,
the ‘A’ students would exchange their answers with the ‘B’ students in pairs.
They could swap their sets of questions and ask each other for the answers,
showing the other student where to find them in the text. This is a student-
centred way of completing the task, with the double advantage that the
students are speaking and listening to each other whilst also learning about
the text.

5. I would give the students a follow-up task focusing on the productive skill
of speaking. I would move two students from each group to the next group,
ensuring that everyone has the chance to work with different people. This
livens up the atmosphere for speaking practice, which the students usually
enjoy. The students would discuss their opinions about the article and ‘space
tourism’ in their groups. Each group would have four cards face down on their
table with questions to prompt discussion. The students would pick up one
card at a time and discuss each question for 2-3 minutes. The questions
would focus on the students’ opinions on the article, whether they think that
space travel will become popular in the future, possible ‘tourist attractions’ in
space, and whether they would like to go on holiday to space. The purpose of
this follow-up task is to give students the opportunity for some communicative
speaking practice and to encourage them to discuss their own thoughts and
opinions about the text they have read. The lesson finishes with some
personalisation and I think the students would enjoy giving their own opinions
on this topic.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Harmer, J. (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching 4th ed.

Harlow: Pearson Longman.
• Scrivener, J. (2005) Learning Teaching 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan.
• Watkins, P. (2005) Learning to Teach English Surrey: Delta Publishing.
• Unknown Author (2008) ‘Branson Unveils Space Tourism Jet’ at BBC
News Website (Published 28/7/08, accessed at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7529978.stm).