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Delta COURSE

LESSON PLAN AND COMMENTARY

NAME OF TRAINEE:
LSA NUMBER: One
WHICH SKILL OR SYSTEM? Listening
NAME OF ASSIGNMENT:
DATE OF LESSON:
LEVEL OF CLASS: Upper Intermediate
TIME AND DURATION OF LESSON: 2.00-3.00 (1 hour)
EXPECTED NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 10
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF LEARNERS AND THE COURSE:
The students are all of Spanish background and studying general English. Their age ranges from
37-77.
Their level of proficiency is upper intermediate and they all come from a Spanish background. The
learners are all females with the exception of one male. Most of the students expressed that they
encounter difficulties when listening, especially with the issue of recognizing words in spoken
context and the speed of the listening materials provided.

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AIM(S) OF LESSON: To be able to Listen for predictions, gist, details and specific information.
To be able to devise lexis related to crime and punishment in speaking as freer
practice.
LESSON FIT:
ASSUMPTIONS:
It is assumed that the students all have a shared background on crime and theft so they can use it
as a build-up for the listening tasks.
ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS:
- Some students might not get involved in the prediction stage due to weak imagination ability, and the
solution is to encourage them and pair and repair them to give them a chance to talk to other students and
share more ideas.
- The speakers might not function well (e.g. echo, too loud etc), and the solution is to check them before the
class, and let the students have a proper distance (not too close, not too fare).
- The over head projector might not work, and the solution is to have handouts to use.
- Some students might come late, and the solution is to start the class with a warmer.
- Some students might not be accustomed with listening for gist, may be they don’t have such sub-skill in
their language, and the solution is to provide a good lead in through prediction and explain the meaning of

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listening for gist before listening (telling them not to listen for every single word, just focus on the main
idea).
- The listening material might be fast for students or difficult to understand at the first listening. The solution
is to play the passage more than once, and stop it at some points if necessary.
MATERIALS AND RESOURCES:
- Handouts
- Listening track 3.1
- Powerpoint presentation
- Whiteboard
WORD COUNT OF COMMENTARY: (It should be between 500-750 words)
COMMENTARY:
In my teaching experience in the Middle-East, I found out that most of the students belief in the idea of “We
just want to speak, we learn English only to speak”. Living with this hypothesis decreased their focus on
listening; they just want to talk and talk all the time. Consequently, I meet a lot of students who are very good at
grammar, and they can’t communicate one natural English sentence simply because they didn’t practice
listening. Another reason of students’ weak listening sub-skills is that most of them don’t practice these sub-
skills in their first language, and others do it unconsciously (e.g. listening to the news, listing for gist in the
airport), and they don’t feel comfortable practicing them in a foreign language. Depending on the above

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mentioned ideas, I think it is important to start training students on listening sub-skills as early as possible.
Therefore, I find teaching listening sub-skills like (prediction, listening for gist and listening for detail) is a good
choice after during this course. The main focus of the lesson is to give students a chance to practise listening
for gist and specific details. Also, they will be given a chance to practice prediction. Practising comprehensive
listening was not included for some reasons; first, this is their first listening sub-skills lesson. Second, the
authentic material is a challenge for their reported issues with following up with the audio’s speed.
Third, students need to gain confidence and build a good relationship with listening lessons.
I decided on the interactive model as an approach of teaching listening (which allows teachers to use both
to-down and bottom-up approach simultaneously), as I’ve tried both listening approaches and none of them was
effective solely. Students will be able to practice listening for the whole text as one unit, and by the end of the
lesson, they will be able to do some focusing on the text features. Students are always keen on learning some
new vocabularies or grammar points after every single lesson regardless of the lesson focus. Consequently, this
lesson presents discussing crime and punishment as one of the sub-aims. This stage will support
practicing their listening for specific information sub-skill, as they are asked to listen and report on specific
words they listened to during the input. My aim here was to watch the sub-achievements that take place
(listening passage features) while students are practicing listening target sub-skills.
Another concern was about choosing the listening material. Researchers (e.g. Brown C., Scrivener J.)
argued that teachers should be careful choosing listening material. They thought that authentic material will

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raise students’ anxiety and reduce their comprehension. They also suggested using semi-authentic (adopted
authentic material (e.g. slowing the speed, less intonation)) or pedagogical material (made for teaching, but not
necessarily have authentic features) for this stage. I was convinced for some time with this idea, and upon my
tutor’s advice, adopted materials from ‘New English File – Upper Intermediate”.
For this lesson I use the content of crime and punishment. Background information will be
discussed before the listening and some prdictions would be made to make the students feel
comfortable with the topic. This feeling of comfortability raises students’ enthusiasm and confidence.
Therefore they can complete the listening tasks despite of their weak linguistic competence as stated by Cook
“our background knowledge sometimes overrides the acoustic signals (sound waves) we hear” (Cook,
2008, 22).There are only two speakers in the listening passage, and it takes the form of an interview. I
believe taking care of length, difficulty and complexity of the listening passage, gives much space for learners to
practice the target sub-skills in a better way.

Word Count: 605

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LESSON PLAN:
STAGE TIME INTERACTION AIM(S) OF STAGE PROCEDURE
Setting 10 Lockstep To tell Students - Teacher displays different pictures of theft and elicits
Context minute about the listening from students what these types are (home robbery,
car theft, identity theft, pickpocketing).
& s get them involved
- Teacher then provides a quiz for students to work on
Encouragin and encourage individually then check in groups, to provide
g Groupwork prediction. background on what burgulars are.
Prediction / To provide them - Student s are encouraged to provide examples using
with lexical the lexical ítems drawing from their own
Lockstep background on experiences.
what they are going
to listen to.
Listening for 6 Lockstep to help Students - Teacher provides a poster of Oliver Twist and elicits
Gist minute practice reading for from students that Fagin taught the boys to become
pickpockets,to prepare them for the content of the
s gist
listening.
Individual - Students are presented with gist questions on the
Pairwork whiteboard, where they need to listen and choose
the correct answer. Students check their answers in
pairs then teacher provides feedback.
Listening for 12 Individual to help Students - Teacher handouts worksheet where students need to
Details minute practice reading for provide an answer to the provided questions after
they listen.
s Pairwork for details
- Students are instructed to work individually then
feedback check their answers in pairs and teacher uses ICQs
(what are we providing in the worksheet? Are we
working alone or in pairs?) and moves around to
assure that they are on task.
Feedback: Teacher provides answers on the board and
checks collectively with students.

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Listening for 12 Individual Students listen for -Teacher handouts worksheet where students need to
Specific minute noticing what are provide details to the words states after they listen.
- Students are instructed to work individually then
Information s Pairwork for the interpretations
check their answers in pairs and teacher uses ICQs
feedback of the words (what are we providing in the worksheet? Are we
provied in the text. working alone or in pairs?) and moves around to
assure that they are on task.
Feedback: Teacher provides answers sheet to each pair
and checks collectively with students.
Freer 20 Groupwork To provide a - Teacher displays the first slide of the powerpoint
Speaking minute chance for Students presentation again and asks students if they, or
someone they know, had a similiar experience with
Practice s to apply the content
theft and crime. Students are seated in groups of
of crime in three, where each one has one minute to prepare
personalized free and another minute to tell their story to the group.
Wholeclass speaking practice Teacher monitors cosely.
- Each groups nominates the best story to be shared
Lockstep with the rest of the class.
Feedback: teacher provides support and encouragement
to students production and encourages other students
participation though follow-up questions on the stories
shared.

Bibliography:

 Cook V., Second Language Learning and Language Teaching, Hodder Education, 2001.

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