In this paper, I would like to develop a lesson plan for lesson 29 called “About

us” in the book Fun for Movers textbook. This lesson aims at helping students
use present continuous and past simple tenses, know and use some adverbs of
manners.

1. Context
Currently, I am working as an English teacher in an English center in Hanoi
where most of the learners are primary students. I often teach small classes from
3 to 7 students. Students have face-to-face lessons with teachers and peers. Each
lesson lasts for about 50 minutes and students have a chance to learn
vocabulary, grammar and skills such as reading, speaking, listening, writing
skills. Lessons often start with warm-up activities to help students revise
knowledge and get ready for class. At the end of the lessons, students are
encouraged to figure out what they have learned and the teacher will give them
some homework so that they can self-study and revise the knowledge they have
learned.

2. Lesson
The lesson called “About us” is lesson 29 in the book Fun for Movers by
Cambridge English. It consists of seven exercises that help students to develop
their listening, reading and speaking skills. This lesson aims to help students
review the use of past simple, know and use some adverbs of manners. It also
encourages students to give their opinion about something.

3. Learners
This lesson plan is used for a class of three students at different ages who have
the same English proficiency levels. Viet Thang and Tae Seong are ten years old
and Chau Anh is nine years old. Their English proficiency levels are about A1
level. Tae Seong and Chau Anh are active in class while Viet Thang is a little bit
shy when he talks or gives answers. As the teacher, I always try to create a
pleasure and supportive classroom for my students to promote their learning and
motivation. I also try to understand their learning style to choose the suitable
teaching methods for them.

4. Aspects of Constructivism and Communicative Language Teaching

In this lesson, I would like to apply Constructivism and Communicative
Language Teaching. According to Bruning et al., (2004), constructivism is
defined as “a psychological and philosophical perspective contending that
individuals form or construct much of what they learn and understand”. Geary
(1995) pointed out that the core assumption of constructivism is that people are
active learners and they develop knowledge for themselves. Constructivism has
two main approaches such as cognitive constructivism and social
constructivism. These approaches have differences regarding the emphasis as
cognitive constructivists like Jean Piaget focus more on the importance of mind
in learning while social constructivists like Vygotsky focus on the importance of
environment and the social interaction between learners. However, there are
some similarities between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theory Perspectives.
Learners are the center of the constructivism classroom as they actively
participate in the learning process. A teacher who applies constructivism can
create meaningful contexts of language use for students. Students have an
opportunity to do meaning-based activities so that they can have meaningful and
communicative practice. Learning is a lifelong process so people focus greater
on the learning process than the products that the learners produce. They took
interest in the way that learners come up with the solution for a problem rather
than the solutions. Learners are encouraged to have critical and creative
thinking.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach which aims at
achieving communicative rather than linguistic competence. It is important to
use meaningful activities to encourage students to practice communicating in
English. Using this approach bears a resemblance to Vygotsky’s Sociocultural
Theory as both of them focus on social communication.

5. Activity analysis:
5.1. Stage 1: Warm-up
The lesson begins with a game in Baamboozle about the past simple tense to
help students revise knowledge about the use of the past simple tense and get
them ready for the new lesson. I asked students to play individually and let them
choose their name for the game. The student who has the highest score will be
the winner and receive 1 star. This activity helps me assess my students whether
they can apply past simple or not. If they give incorrect answers, I will call
another student to help them. After the game I give a quick revision of the past
simple tense. By playing this game, students become more active and have fair
competition with their classmates.

5.2. Stage 2: Pre-teaching

In this stage, I provide students with some new words that they could have in
task E. I show the students the word and the pronunciation as well as the
recordings of that word. Students are encouraged to guess the Vietnamese
meaning of these words. For each word, students are asked to repeat after the
recording and note the words on their notebook if needed. After learning all the
words, I invite each student to read the random words that I point to.
=> This activity makes it easier for students to understand the reading text in
task E. It also helps students practice pronunciation.

5.3. Stage 3: While-teaching

a. Task A. Look at the pictures. Complete the sentences
 - In this task, I ask the students to look at the picture and ask different
learners questions about singing like: “Do you like music? Do you like
singing? When do you sing? Where do you sing? Are you good at
singing?” to provide them the opportunity to share about themselves.
- Next, I point to the picture of the man singing and ask: Is this man good
at singing? After that I show the word with photos: well, badly, then ask.
“Do his friends like his singing? (no) Does he sing well? (no) Does he
sing badly? (yes)” then I ask them to fill in the blank.
- I show the picture of rabbit and turtle and let students guess the words
slowly, quickly. After they have the correct answer, I say: Move your
heads slowly! Move your hands quickly!. I get students look at the
picture of the man driving and ask “Is the man driving slowly or
quickly?” (slowly) then ask them to fill in the blank.
=> This activity is used to introduce the adverb of manners to the students. They
are also asked some related questions and do action so that they would not be
bored.
b. Task B. What do you think? Write yes or no.
- I ask the students to read sentences 1-7 and underline the adverbs in each
sentence which says how we do something and do sentence 1 as an
example. Students are asked to share the words they have already found
and guess the similarity of those words
- I point out that most words that tell us how people do things end in ‘-ly’. I
take some examples and check students’ understanding.
- I instruct the students to answer sentences by writing “yes” if it is correct
or “no” if it is incorrect.
- I use the “Lollipop technique” to call students to share their answers with
the class.
=> This task provides students the opportunity to feel free to share their
opinions in English as there are no wrong answers. It also helps students realize
the sign of an adverb of manners.

c. Task C. Find words that start with these letters in the picnic picture.
- Students are asked to look at the picture and pay attention to things and
people in the picture. I say
+ “I can see something in this picture that begins with ‘g’. You can
play music on it. What is it?” (guitar)
+ “And something that you can take to the park and fly that begins
with ‘k’?” (kite)
+ “I can see something at the back of the picture. It’s big and old. It
begins with ‘c’. What is it?” (castle)
- I instruct the students to find words that start with ‘g’, ‘k’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘p’
letters in the picture and give the students some suggestions to make them
easier to find.
- Students are required to work individually and find as many words
beginning with c, d, p as possible in two minutes then invite them to give
answers.
- I ask students to close their books, listen and answer my questions
carefully.
+ How many animals were in the picture? (4)
+ Which animals did you see? (a cow, a dog, a duck and a panda)
+ Which animal was hiding? (a panda)
+ How many kites were in the picture? (one)
+ How many red cars were there? (one)

=> This task allows students to recall the words in the picture that begins with
the letter c, d, p. They are required to use their memory to answer the questions
when they have to close their books.
 d. Task D. Listen and draw lines.
- I have the students look back at the picture in task C and the given name.
Their duty is to listen and draw lines between the children and their
names.
- I get the students to pay attention to signal words and play the tape for the
S to listen twice.
- I use the “Lollipop technique” to call students to deliver their answers and
encourage them to tell how they know the answers.
- I ask: “Where are the father’s shoes? Can you see them?” (in the plants)

=> Students have a chance to practice listening skills and speaking skills. After
matching the children with their name, students are required to share the signal
to match with their classmates to know whether they share the same ideas or
not. It encourages students to have more communication with others.

e. Task E. Read the story. Choose words.

- I point to the man walking to the castle in the picture in D and ask:

+ “Who’s this man?” (John)

+ Where’s he going? (to the castle)

- Then say: “These pictures show part of a story called ‘John’s trip to the
castle’. Let’s read the story” and ask students to take turns to read the
story aloud. Instruct students to put a circle around the correct word for 2
- 10 to complete the text.
- Ask the S to present their answers.
- Let students imagine that they are the monster and tell the story about
meeting John at the castle.
=> Students practice the use of past simple tenses, adverbs of manners. At the
end of the task, they can develop their imagination and storytelling skill by
telling the story as the monster.

f. Task F. Ask and answer questions

- Students are asked to read through 5 questions.
- I instruct the students to answer the question by writing yes or no in the
column under ‘Me’ and take an example for the S to understand. I ask
one learner to ask me the first question.
+ Learner: Can you swim?
+ Teacher: No. I can not swim.
- I have the students form a circle, take turns asking and answering 5
questions with their classmates. They have to note their friends’ answers
in the column next to column “Me”.
- I invite one student to give a short description about one of their friends
based on 5 questions.

=> This task allows students to know how to ask and answer about abilities.
They are encouraged to work with other students and share more about
themselves. Social interaction plays an important role in learning as according
to Vygotsky, culture, history and social interactions play a critical role in the
cognitive development of children. At the end of the task, students practice
speaking by describing one of their friends based on 5 questions.

5.4. Stage 4: Post-teaching

Task G. Play the game! Draw the sentences
- Ask students to work individually to write 5 about some animals that are
doing something using the adverbs they have learned.
 - Invite students to take turns coming to the board and draw the picture of
their sentence. Other learners are encouraged to guess the sentences of the
picture on the board. Each correct answer will receive 1 point. The
student with the highest score will have 1 star.
=> Students apply what they have just learned to write the sentences using
present continuous and adverbs of manners. The vocabulary about animals is
also recalled by doing this task. It is an interesting activity where students can
play guessing games.

5.5. Wrap-up
- I encourage students to list what they have learned, what they need to
improve and their feelings after the lesson.
- I give them some exercise in Liveworksheet so that they can self-study at
home.
- Say goodbye

6. Reflection
From my experience, implementing Constructivism theory and Communicative
Language Teaching approaches in my teaching helps me to teach more
effectively. I can promote the active roles of learners thanks to the move from
teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered instruction. By providing
meaningful and communicative practice, I encourage my students to participate
actively in activities that are close to their real life. I also know how to create
activities that can encourage students to work in groups or work in pairs just
because they want. Students are welcome to share their thoughts without fear of
judgment in my class as I try to have a non - judgemental positive attitude and
show students respect they deserve. I always try to maintain a pleasant and
supportive atmosphere so that students can enjoy their learning. I aim to teach
my students not only what to learn but also how to learn effectively and let them
set goals for themselves so that students are empowered to develop
self-regulation skills and discover their own purposes for learning. It is also
important for educators to consider the educational value of a task and help the
students understand that learning is a lifelong journey, they are not encouraged
to learn just to get good marks. While assessing students, I focus more on the
process than the results of students to reduce the test-oriented.
C. Find words that start with these letters in the picnic picture
C D P

F. Ask and answer questions

me
1. Can you swim under the water? …………. …………. ………….
2. Are you good at running? ………..... ………..... ……….....
3. Can you cook rice or noodles? …………. …………. ………….
4. Do you eat quickly or slowly? …………. …………. ………….
5. Can you clap really loudly? …………. …………. ………….
6. Are you good at counting in English? ………….. ………….. ………….