Lesson Plan

A. Introduction
Name of the Preservice English Teacher: -
Class: BEG 21
Date and Time: 14/01/2022- 09:50-10:40
Place: Zoom
Type of Lesson: A reading lesson
Materials: OLR 0,5, computer, camera, microphone, headphones, digital documents
(PowerPoint presentation, reading handout), teaching tools on Zoom.

B. Group Profile
The group is at beginner level; however, there are some discrepancies between the students in
terms of their English level. Some of the students feel more at ease and confident while the
others are self-conscious and afraid of making mistakes. It is fair to say that the students’
English competency is between A1 and A2.
All of the students in BEG 21 are Turkish, so they are learning English as a foreign language.
Their ages vary between 18-20. There are 14 students in total (6 female/ 8 male). The
fundamental reason why they are learning English is that they will need to have an advanced
level of English in order to keep up with their studies in their departments. They are also aware
that being proficient in English will add to their future professions.
The students are inconsistent in terms of having their cameras on during the lesson. However,
on most days more than half of the students have their cameras on all the time, while some
others might turn them on and off throughout the lesson. Some of them prefer not to have their
cameras on. They turn them on when they are told to do so but switch them off after a few
minutes (Atakan Erdoğan, Çağla Ayten, Muhammed Keleş, Kevser Çetin and Gürkan Onğulu).
Gürkan Ongulü usually joins the lesson from his phone so his Zoom automatically closes his
camera if he is looking at a handout or the book. Çağla Ayten and Kevser Çetin join the lesson
from their dorm rooms, so they usually have other students in the room and they do not want to
open their cameras for their friends’ privacy. I have explained to them that although I
understand their reason, having cameras on would add to their success and motivation. I can
say that they are making an effort to have them on more and more every day. However, for the
other 2 students, I can say that I try to remind them of the importance of having the camera on
daily; sometimes it motivates them, sometimes it doesn’t, but I keep trying.
Begüm Doğru, Çağla Ayten, Buğra Tuncer, Gürkan Onğulu, Berke Karayünlü and Busenur
Kılınç are quite active during the lessons, and are willing to participate whether it be verbally
or via the chat box. These students are not afraid to answer the questions in a reading lesson
and provide justifications. They comprehend readings fairly easily when compared to others.
They make an effort to ask questions when they need clarification and are not hesitant to use
the newly introduced structures. Gürkan Ongulu can be classified as a dominant student as he
is willing to volunteer for most activities. Müberra Bacak, Büşra Gökalp, Kerim Aşık and
Kevser Çetin always make an effort to follow the lesson and contribute when necessary. Their
answers to the reading comprehension questions are mostly accurate and they frequently self-
correct easily when they make mistakes. They hesitate to volunteer but always join in the lesson
when nominated. So, they rarely dominate the lesson. Sertan Şahin and Muhammed Keleş need
the most support in the class, their English proficiency is not up to the level. They need constant
motivation and support especially during reading comprehension questions. However,
Muhammed Keleş always makes an effort to ask questions if a point is not clear for him or he
cannot locate the information in the text. Sertan Şahin follows the lesson but stays quiet most
of the time. He rarely volunteers but when asked to provide an answer, he usually does so.
All of my students seem to enjoy the pre-reading activities; especially if it consists of asking
and answering questions in pairs and groups. They listen to each other attentively and try to use
English in the breakout rooms as much as they can with the exception of Atakan Erdoğan and
Çağla Ayten. These two students sometimes slip back into Turkish in the midst of doing pre
reading activities in breakout rooms. However, I can say that with every passing week they are
using less Turkish. I make an effort to remind them the importance of speaking English in the
breakout rooms and lessons every day and I think they are coming to terms with it slowly but
surely.
One essential problem that I have come to see in the students is their pronunciation. I try to
dedicate enough time to work on their pronunciation during the lessons and make them become
aware of their errors whilst they are speaking in a friendly manner. I also encourage them to
work on their pronunciation at home. Another problem that I witness is grammar errors; mostly
during the elicitation stages in the reading lessons. Some of my students get really excited and
animated while I am eliciting their answers orally and tend to make grammar mistakes when
answering reading comprehension questions. I do my best to note their mistakes down during
the tasks/activities and give them extensive feedback in which I first try to get them to
discover/correct their own mistakes and if that fails I remind them of the grammar point to get
them to correct it afterwards. I often parrot their mistakes to make them aware of their mistakes
and make room for self-correction.

C. Anticipated problems and offered solutions

• I may experience technical problems during the lesson; however,:
-If there is a problem with my internet connection, I will connect my computer to my
phone’s internet data. In the meantime, I will send a task to the students about the reading
text via Remind and give them instructions to carry out the task until I reconnect.
-If my zoom fails to open, I will start the program again as this usually solves the problem
or I can inform my students about the situation via “Remind” and give them my WebEx ID
to conduct the lesson from that platform.
- If my PPT can’t be seen by students, I will change the view mode of the PPT and try again.
If that fails, I will email my PPT (student version) to the students. They can view it from
their computers or phones and I can continue with my lesson with minimum time loss.
-If my students cannot download the Word document from the chat box or OdtuClass, I will
email the document to them or I can take a picture of the document and send it to them via
“Remind”.
• The instructions might not be clear for some students. ICQs and CCQs will be used to make
sure that it is crystal clear for every student.
• The students might have trouble with using the correct grammar component when
answering the comprehension questions. If that is the case, I will try to make them notice
their mistake by parroting the sentences and asking the whole class for corrections. I will
present examples if necessary. I will also note down the mistakes they make in the breakout
rooms while they are peer checking. I will share their mistakes at the end of the activities
and give them opportunity to self-correct or direct the whole class’ attention to the mistakes
to provide an opportunity for correction if need be. If that fails, I will highlight the mistakes,
and remind them of the grammar component as a last resort.
• The topic of the reading text may not be interesting for the students and thus, they may not
be motivated to read it. I will try to attract their attention and arouse their curiosity by
showing them pictures, and asking some questions about the topic to slowly set the context.
• The reading text seems somewhat challenging for beginner level students as there may be a
number of words that they do not know. For that reason, they may have problems in
understanding the text. I am planning to give them plenty of time for the exercises (for the
detail questions). Additionally, I am going to pre-teach some words before we start reading
to make it easier for them to read and understand the text (heat and portable).
• I expect to have some problems about timing as I will teach vocabulary and try to do all the
reading exercises in 50 minutes. As I do not think I will have enough time for the production
part, I am going to do it the next hour.

D. Objectives
By the end of the lesson, students will have;
• been introduced to the meaning, form and use of the lexical items heat, and portable to
make the comprehension of the reading smoother through elicitation.
• skimmed the text to learn what the text is about by answering a question that gives them
three choices about the general topic of the text.
• scanned the text to fill out the missing information in a task by searching for the related
keywords and locating the necessary information.
• located necessary information in the text
-to practice careful reading by answering comprehension questions.
-to find what the words in bold refer to by doing a referencing task.

E. Previous Knowledge
The students are already familiar with skimming and scanning strategies as I use them in my
reading lessons. Moreover, the strategies have been taught in Wide Angle 1 (Unit 8.3, page 94)
and Wide Angle 2 (Unit 6.2, page 67). I also remind them of these strategies whenever we get
a chance to do reading activities from OLR 0.5 book. However; I always check if they
remember the strategies by asking question such as: “Do you need to read the whole text? /Are
you looking for the keywords?”. I think it is important to remind them of such strategies as they
are moving up in their level and these are vital strategies that will make it easier for them to
move onto more difficult texts on their own. Thus, by recycling these strategies within the
classroom, I am training them towards being more autonomous.
The students are also familiar with the topic of “Rooms/Places/Furniture in a House” (Wide
Angle 1; Unit 3.3 page 35) and the words that are used in the reading related to parts of a house
as they learnt those words in the previous span. They have also been presented with many tasks
in which they used the vocabulary related to houses in this span during various activities. For
example; in the previous week the students described their room and the furniture in their room
by using prepositions of place. Hence, I do not expect students to struggle with aforementioned
vocabulary items.

F. Stages / Procedure
Acronyms: PPP- Power Point Presentation

NTS- Note-Taking Sheet

WD- Word Document

Stages &
Time Procedure Interaction Materials
Aims

09.50 Presentation/ The T will start the lesson with the T-Sts PPP-
Lead-in PowerPoint presentation. The T Sts-Sts Appendix
10 minutes will present the Sts with Sts – T 1/NTS-
personalized questions about
Appendix 3
travelling and Japan, ask them to
think about the answers in a
minute and then put them into
pairs in breakout rooms to ask and
answer the questions while noting
down each other’s answers. The T
will monitor and take notes of
mistakes. The T will elicit some of
the responses and lead the topic to
Japan. The T will encourage
self/peer-correction if Sts make
mistakes. If that fails, the T will
correct the mistakes.

10.00 Pre-Teaching The T will pre-teach heat and T-Sts PPP-

Vocabulary portable. Sts will be shown some Sts-T Appendix 1
10 minutes pictures related to the words and
the T will ask CCQs to elicit the
words from the Sts. The T will
also drill the words with the
students. The T will also show the
vocabulary cards related to each
word so the Sts can clearly
visualize the form of the words.
10:10 Skimming The T will share the text and the WD-
activities with the Sts via the T-Sts Appendix-2
3 chatbox/Odtuclass as a word Sts – T /Poll
minutes document. The T will direct the
Sts attention to the question:
“What is the text mainly about?”,
ask the Sts to skim the text and do
a poll to elicit the answers. The T
will ask for justifications if need
be.

10:13 The Sts will be asked to fill out the T-Sts WD-
Scanning missing information on the notes Sts-T Appendix-2
7 about the reading. The T will elicit
minutes the answers.

The T will lead the Sts into the

10:20 Careful next activity. Give them a minute T-Sts WD-
Reading to read the questions and underline Sts-Sts Appendix-2 /
15 the keywords. The keywords will Sts-T NTS-
minutes be elicited and highlighted. The Appendix 3
Sts will then be asked to answer
the comprehension questions on
their own. Then, the Sts will be
sent to breakout rooms to peer-
check their answers. The T will
monitor the Sts and note down
their errors. The T will screen
share the task and elicit the
answers from the Sts while asking
justification follow up questions
for their answers. The T will also
try to get the Sts to self-correct or
peer correct if the grammar of the
answer is problematic or if there is
a pronunciation error, the word
will be drilled.

The Sts will be asked to find what

10:35 Reading for the chosen words refer to in the T-Sts WD-
Details text. The answers will be elicited. Sts-T Appendix-2
5 If there is need for clarification,
minutes the T will ask questions to direct
the Sts to the justification of the
answer.
G. Contingency plan
If some of the students finish early during the careful reading or refer activities, they will be
given extra questions to do (Appendix 4/5). The students usually inform me via the chat box on
Zoom if they finish early. I will first ask them if they have checked their answers. If they say
“yes”, then I will give them the extra handouts.
If we have some extra time at the end of the lesson, I will start the production part of the lesson
in which the students will be asked to work in groups and write a paragraph to compare a
Japanese house with a Turkish house for the METU Culture Magazine using the given notes on
Padlet. After they finish, the students will be given a checklist (Appendix-6) to use while
reading and checking each other’s paragraph. I will also monitor the breakout rooms and take
notes of students’ mistakes. I will ask the students to “help each other to make their paragraphs
better” by asking them about the errors they noticed in breakout rooms. I will take notes of the
errors students noticed in other paragraphs and write the errors on the white board anonymously
when they return from break out rooms. The errors will be corrected with a class discussion. If
the students are not able to self or peer correct, I will give them hints. If that fails, I will correct
the error, explain the reason and do follow up activities if necessary.

H. Commentary
I think starting the lesson with visuals and personalized questions will help students activate
their schemata about Japan and be a good lead in activity to the reading text as it is about
Japanese Houses. The students will be pre-taught the words heat and portable. The students
will make use of these items when they are answering questions in Task C. I believe sparing
time aside to pre-teach these vocabulary items will help students to grasp some points about the
reading and give them confidence as it will help them to locate the correct answers. Moreover,
by focusing on meaning, pronunciation and form, I believe that a wholesome vocabulary
teaching will be achieved.
As a further note, the timing of the lead in stage is 10 minutes and it might seem like a lot but
as the lesson is after the break, sometimes some of the students are one or two minutes late or
they might be joining the lesson for the first time that day and I might end up repeating some
of the information or instructions again. By allocating 10 minutes, I believe that I can minimize
my timing problems if such a situation occurs. If not, then I can shift the remaining minutes to
the other stages of the lesson.
In terms of interaction, I think that the lesson will include different patterns of interaction and
will provide enough time for the students to work with and learn from each other. The lead in
task will be completed in pairs, and Task C will enable the students to peer-check. I did not
include group work for task completion activities as I will ask them to work in groups in the
production stage. The break-out sessions always add to the atmosphere of the classroom in a
positive way and the students will get a chance to work together for a considerable amount of
time during the lead-in and post stages. I also believe that the time that the students will work
together in groups will be sufficient in terms of interaction.
For this lesson, I have edited OLR 0.5 Reading 66 text as the original questions were too many
in number and some of the questions did not seem challenging enough. However, as I have
decreased the number of the questions, I have prepared extra questions for early finishers. If
any student completes task C or D earlier, I will send them the extra ones(Appendix 4/5) via
the chat-box. I have also added a new question type (filling out missing information) because
although the students are familiar with parts of a house, they are culturally unfamiliar to parts
of Japanese houses. As the reading includes culture specific information and uses the Japanese
words for some places in Japanese houses and object, I think by completing the table in task B,
they will feel more at ease and have a greater understanding of the text before answering
comprehension questions. I think the skimming and the scanning activities will do justice to the
reading as they focus on meaning that can be derived from the text.
Appendices (attached to the e-mail)
Appendix 1: PowerPoint Presentation
Appendix 2: Word Document -OLR 0.5 (Reading 66 Edited Version)
Appendix 3: Teacher Note-Taking Sheet
Appendix 4: Extra Comprehension Questions
Appendix 5: Extra “Refer” Questions
Appendix 6: Student Checklist for the Post-Activity