mŞEHİT SELCAN AKBAŞ ORTAOKULU

OBSERVE 2. ACTIVITY-BASED LESSON PLANNING

Before the Lesson:

Ask the teacher for the lesson plan she makes and analyze it. If s/he doesn’t prepare a plan ask the
teacher about his/her mental plans: what are some considerations s/he has; how she decides on the
activities; whether s/he has an alternative plan/activity if the one s/he selected doesn’t work; how she
prepares the materials required for the activity, etc.

-Duygu teacher shares the class (6-B) with another teacher. While the other teacher gives the students
the grammar rules or vocabulary information, Duygu teacher’s role is to make the activities with the
students to support and intensify their knowledge. As she is not the only one in charge of the class, she
doesn’t prefer to go out of the book. Therefore, she doesn’t have a prepared lesson plan other than the
book. She makes the activities in the exact order of the book. She only checks the book before coming to
class and she asks the other teacher what he/she has done in their lesson to have a better understanding
of the information the students has been taught.

During the Lesson:

1-Observe your
teacher and decide As I have seen so far, she teaches her lesson only by using the traditional
whether she is using activities on the book. She doesn’t use listening materials or any videos
a traditional because currently they don’t have smart boards in their classroom. She doesn’t
approach (PPP) or involve the students during the teaching part other than question answer parts
activity-based or some readings. So, I can say she uses the traditional approach.
learning.

2-Note down each 1-After checking their homework, she started the lesson with a reading activity.
activity and identify She herself read the text to the class first and later, she let the other willing
how the teacher students read. As the class is very crowded and the students’ attention span is
sequenced them. very limited, I think it was the logical way to start the lesson with an activity
that requires more concentration because once they start talking to each other
or once one of them laughs, it is very hard to draw their attention back to the
lesson. She planned the activities from concrete to abstract and difficult to
easy. (However, I don’t think that was the main reason why she started the
lesson with the reading activity. I think it was because the next activity on the
book was the reading. She never changes the order of the activities that are in
the book.)
2-After a few students read the text out loud, she repeated some words that
the students mispronounced.
3-Then, when the reading was done, she gave sts some time to answer the
true-false questions. The questions were answered all together when sts
 finished.
4-For the second activity, there was a reading part again but mostly it was a fill
in the blank activity. They needed to fill the blanks in the dialogue with WH
questions after reading the little texts which described some characters. She let
the willing students pick the character they want and read their answers.
(She sequenced the activities on the exact order of the book.)

3-Focus on activity The first activity was a reading-comprehension activity. It mostly included the
transitions: how previous lesson’s chunks. It only involved one question related to the next
does the teacher activities that they were going to do.
moves from one After the first activity was done, she skipped to the next activity which actually
activity to another; was not related to the previous one in any way. She did not pay attention to the
how are the links transitions and I have not observed any special transition methods.
established; are
these transitions
smooth enough for
children to follow
the lesson without
being lost; how does
s/he manage that?

4-If the teacher is As I have mentioned before, the class is crowded and it is almost impossible to
using a traditional keep the whole class focused on the lesson. The teacher did nothing special to
approach, observe draw their attention or encourage them. She only answered the questions. I
the classroom and think the students were quiet because they respect their teacher. Not all the
note down the students were willing or encouraged to join the class. There were a few
children’s reactions students who were good at English and wanted to take part. However, they
(enjoyment, were affected and outnumbered by those who did not care about what was
boredom..), going on in the lesson.
children’s
contributions,
language
emphasized
(meaning/accuracy),
involvement,
interest ….
After the lesson:

1-Our actions are shaped Duygu teacher said ‘As the class consists of 30-35 students, it is very hard
by our beliefs and to involve all the students in the lesson or do an activity other than the
experiences. If the traditional ones which does not require any action other than sitting on
teacher is using a the desks and answering the questions. Actually, the book we use has
traditional approach, some extra listening activities I want to do but as we do not have a smart
interview him/her about board in our classroom, I can not fully teach my lesson the way I want to
his/her reasons. Try to do.’
identify his/her beliefs
about teaching in that
way.

2-If the teacher is -She said ‘The Ministry of Education wants us to use the book it gave us. I
demonstrating strong try to do as much as I can and what I deem sufficient from the book
adherence to the book during the lesson. But in some places, I find the book incomplete. That's
and does not use extra why I try to bring extra materials to the lesson, but technological
activities or materials, limitations sometimes make it difficult to do so. At the same time,
learn about his/her besides the activities in the book, I make sure that the activities I bring
reasons. from outside of the book are conversation-oriented.’

3-If the teacher is using -She said ‘I only do it because it is suggested by the curriculum but with
activity-based learning no doubt, I also find it beneficial.’
discuss with the teacher
about its effectiveness.
Does s/he find it useful
and beneficial? Or does
s/he use it because it is
suggested by the
curriculum?

4-Reflect on what you There were a lot of unfamiliar words on the first reading activity. To make
have learnt so far and this reading activity more interesting for children, we can write
what you have observed unfamiliar words on small papers and put them in a box. After reading
and report on your ideas the text we could divide the class into groups and ask one student from
about teaching children each group to pick one word from the box and ask the Turkish meaning to
by giving your reasons. their group. We could give the groups some points for each correct
Think about ways to answer. This way all the students would be involved in the reading and
change a PPP lesson into learn vocabulary as the competition environment is a good motive for
an activity-based lesson. students to take part in the lesson.
 Table 2: Selection and sequencing of activities. First list the activities the teacher uses and then
write about how they were sequencing. Remember the rules necessary for this (ex: receptive to
productive, concrete to abstract, easy to difficult, etc.). Finally, note down how the teacher
moved from one activity to the next. How did s/he make her transitions?

Activities Sequencing Transitions

-Reading activity
The text was about traditional
Japanese houses.
First the teacher read the text to
the class.
Later she let some students read
the text out loud.
The teacher corrected some
mispronunciations by repeating
the words with the class.
The teacher asked students to
find the Turkish meanings of
some words from their
dictionary.
Finally she asked one student to
summarize the text in Turkish.
As the reading part didn’t Before reading the text the
require anything other than teacher talked a little bit about
just understanding the text what they were going to read.
we can say that the first She draw a house on the board
activity was receptive and similar to one on the book. It
they started answering the was a good way to introduce the
questions at the second activity and draw their attention.
activity where they started to
the producing part After the reading part was done
(Receptive to productive) she made one student to
summarize the text which was
also a good way of making
everything clear but I would ask
the students to summarize the
text in English rather than
Turkish because it would be
better for them to use the
vocabulary they’d just learned.

2.True- False Activity Receptive to Productive Before doing this activity, they
After she made sure that had already learned the
they understood the text, necessary vocabulary and
she skipped to the understood the text clearly so
true-false questions. the transition wasn’t hard for the
students, they were ready to
Questions were related to
answer.
the text.
She gave some time for
them to answer the
questions.
After they were finished she
answered the questions
with the students. She
corrected their mistakes.
3.Fill in The Blanks Activity We can say that the first two After the first two activities were
The activity was mainly activities were harder as it had finished she didn’t do anything
about W-H questions. unfamiliar vocabulary and was special when starting this
Before the questions, there about another culture but they activity. The transition wasn’t
was a small reading part are familiar with the W-H very smooth but this activity is
questions and the detective- easier when compared to the
about two characters: a
thief concept so the lesson plan other so I don’t think that there
detective and a thief.
was from difficult to easy. should have been any warm-up
First some students read the section before starting.
text out loud.
After, the filled the blanks
with W-H questions.
The teacher corrected the
wrong answers.