Alkhamali, M.
2012
1- Instructional Context
The
target students are in the sixth primary grade. They are studying English for
the first time this semester. According to the teacher of the class, his
students, most of them, are good and willing to learn English. He also mentioned
that there are five to six students have good quality in pronouncing and
reading new words due to their parents' English background. About the previous
assessments, he mentioned that most of the students achieved the target skills
from the first time. On the other hand, the rest of students had some
difficulties with some sub-skills, in accordance to the teacher's guide,
because of either first language interference or their absence from some
classes.
The aforementioned information shows
that I have to plan a lesson that is fulfilling the students' interests and
challenging their level. In accordance with their level, I planned to give them
opportunities while presenting the items to participate. I am also going to let
students have a short dialogue as they ask each other questions in pairs. Students'
ability in pronouncing and reading new words will help in dividing the class
into groups while doing the evaluative task.
The lesson is focusing on vocabulary
and it will be about TRANSPORTATION. Choosing this topic was one of the
strategies that I will use to fulfill students' interests. Another strategy is
involving students in some short dialogue, the first one will be with me as I
ask the question and they answer it and the second one will be in pairs. I am
also going to group them to do the task cooperatively.
Some
difficulties that I may have will be:
Absence
of some students as the lesson will be at the end of the semester. In this
case, students from the same level in the school will be brought to the class
from another section. The lesson is going to be given within 40 minutes the
remaining 5 minutes will be for students' questions. In case that the preparing
of the class takes longer time, I will be short in some procedures in a way
that does not negatively affect the procedures. Otherwise, there will not be any difficulties
with the vocabulary items and the dialogues as they appropriate to the students'
level.
2 - Planning
and Instruction
The
way I will present the lesson in tends to serve some of the General Objectives
of Teaching English Language in Saudi Arabia, as mentioned in the preface of
the sixth grade book, these objectives are:
-
Acquire basic language skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) in order to communicate with
speakers of English language.
-
Acquire the linguistic
competence necessarily required in various life situations.
-
Develop their awareness of the importance of
English as a means of international communication.
-
Develop positive
attitudes towards learning English.
In
addition to these general objectives, I planned this lesson to achieve three
behavioral objectives. These objectives deal with two high levels of the
cognitive domain as following,
-
Differentiate between types of transportations. (analysis)
-
Categorize means of transportations in categories. (analysis)
-
Produce related words out of dispersed letters. (synthesis)
The first one will be achieved
as students being able to put the means of transportations in the correct
place; air, sea or land. The other two objectives will be achieved while
students do the in-class task. The above sequence is the same sequence which
will be followed during the lesson. Within the lesson, the students will be
observed for their usage of the indefinite articles as practicing for a
previous knowledge.
The
reasons for choosing this topic are:
-
Book focus on presenting vocabulary items that
are related to a certain topic. Therefore, it is better to introduce the new
topic in the way that the students used to it.
-
It is interesting for the
students to talk about transportation means.
-
The level of the topic is
appropriate to the students' level.
-
The items can be used in
everyday life activities.
-
It will motivate the
students to participate specially with a new teacher.
Although
the lesson is based on vocabulary items, I planned to have some short dialogues
with the students and among them. This can be seen as they answer the questions
"what is this?" and "what do you have?" The following are
the procedures that I have used while teaching.
-
As warming up, students will look at pictures of
different means of transportations.
-
Then, I will present these pictures on flashcards one
by one with the question "WHAT IS THIS?" starting
from the easiest to the most difficult. Here any answer is acceptable even in
Arabic.
-
After having some answers, I will utter the word and
flip the flashcard to the written form of the word.
-
Students will
have opportunities to hear the correct pronunciation couple of times. Then the
students repeat it individually and in groups.
-
Back to the question "WHAT IS THIS?"
now I am going to repeat the object name as an answer "THIS
IS A/AN… ".
-
After presenting all the flashcards, I will give a student
some flashcards and I will get some of them. Then, I will present the following
question and answer: *WHAT DO YOU HAVE? è I HAVE
A/AN ……
-
I will start asking the student and helping him to
answer. After the students master the dialogue, they will get the chance to
practice it.
-
On the poster on the board, I will present the three
types of transportations, air, sea and land. Then, I will ask students to
categorize the means according to their types.
The previous steps can be seen
in the recorded video in the same order. For presenting objects, I used
flashcards for each one with the name of the object on the backside. The
procedures follow the inductive approach. I started with providing examples of
different means of transportations then I narrow the issue by having three
types of transportations at the end, the students participate in presenting the
topic.
The
objectives of the lesson connected together by the sequence of the procedures.
The students will master the first objective at the beginning. Subsequently, the
other objectives will be mastered. The procedures, as a set, serve to provide
the students with sufficient information about the topic.
3-
Analysis:
In this section, I am
going to cite certain moments of the interaction that happened during the
lesson. I will also provide some evidence, from the video, about achieving the
lesson objectives. I am also going to present some worksheets to prove the
students ability of achieving the objectives.
Though
the topic is new and from outside the book, the students showed good quality of
interaction with the teacher and between themselves. This interaction occurs in
various ways. Sometimes, it happened as answering a question as in the moments
00:14 è 1:00. In other cases,
the interaction was shown up as participating in categorizing the means on the
board as in 2:09 è 3:54. Responding for words
drilling happened many times during the lesson one as in 1:10 è 1:50. Peer feedback occurred in
6:40 è 6:56 as the students
corrected their classmate answer. In the 7:14 one of the students called the "ambulance"
it is a health car, I instantly corrected it and said, "it is an
ambulance". A group of questions was directed to the students as a
revision. These questions showed a good deal of interaction as the students
responded instantly. In 11:29 è 13:04
there was an interaction between one of the students and I as we asked and
answered each other what do you have. This interaction was presented as
a model. In 13:49 è 15:40
the interaction happened between two students as asking and answering the same
question.
Focusing
on the objectives, we can notice that the objectives were achieved in different
places in the lesson. At 2:08 è 8:28
the students showed the ability in differentiating between types of
transportations. Even when a student put "the truck" in a
wrong place his classmates corrected it. The second and third objectives were
measured by a written task. The students were divided into groups of three
students in each one. As can be seen in the attached papers, nine out of
fifteen students did well in achieving the objectives. They had some mistakes
due to the first language interference as in writing "helicobter" instead
of "helicopter". Some other mistakes have to do with lake of
spelling rules, as the students do not know when the (a) precedes (i) as they
wrote "trian" instead of "train". In general,
the students did well in achieving all three objectives. The following four pages
will be for the original lesson plan and the worksheets.
Lesson Plan
TOPIC: Transportations
TARGETED LEVEL: the 6th primary AREA/SKILL: Vocabulary
Objectives: At the end of this lesson, students are going to be
able to…
1-
Categorize means of
transportations in categories.
2-
Differentiate between types
of transportations.
3-
Produce related words out
of dispersed letters.
New Vocabulary:
Transportation – car – bus – helicopter – train – boat – plane – motorcycle
– bike – ship – tank – truck – ambulance – air – sea – land
Procedures:
-
As warming up, students
will look at pictures of different means of transportations.
-
Then, I will present these
pictures on flashcards one by one with the question "WHAT IS THIS?"
starting from the easiest to the most difficult. Here any answer is
acceptable even in Arabic.
-
After having some answers,
I will utter the word and flip the flashcard to the written form of the word.
-
Students will have opportunities to hear the
correct pronunciation couple of times. Then the students repeat it individually
and in groups.
-
Back to the question "WHAT
IS THIS?" now I am going to repeat the object name as an answer "THIS
IS A/AN… ".
-
After presenting all the
flashcards, I will give a student some flashcards and I will get some of them.
Then, I will present the following question and answer: *WHAT DO YOU HAVE? è
I HAVE A/AN ……
I will start asking the student and helping
him to answer. After the students master the dialogue, they will get the chance
to practice it.
-
On the poster on the board,
I will present the three types of transportations, air, sea and land. Then, I
will ask students to categorize the means according to their types.
Tasks:
1-
Using graphic organizer to
provide some means of transportations.
2-
Produce related words to
the topic out of dispersed letters.
4- Reflection:
As
I mentioned in the instructional context, the students of this class are
studying English for the first time. So it is something enough for them to
start asking and answering a certain question. This is what happened in this
lesson; the students practice the language using short conversation. Being able
to ask and answer specific question is the beginning of learning how to
communicate with others using the English language. It also helps them to
understand the teaching and learning process as the teacher aims to get their
response for his question. This understanding to the function of asking and
answering questions can be noticed in 13:49 è 15:40
of the video.
The
video shows a full engagement of the students. Each student had the chance to
participate during the lesson. Techniques of participation were varying
according to the process. Some students participate in reading new words other
participate in categorizing the objects other in answering questions and in
doing the short dialogue. This variety of techniques helped in engaging the
whole 15 students in the lesson. The students showed a great deal of
interaction during the task phase. They participated in groups of three
students to achieve the task.
There
was no divergence from the original plan at any process of the lesson. This can
be used as evidence in achieving the objectives of the lesson. In other words,
the students did not find any remarkable difficulty in understanding and
following the instruction. In this case, I, as a teacher of this class, did not
need to change any procedures to fulfill the students needs and interests.
However, if I have another chance to do the lesson, I will do some changes as
the following. First, I will have extra flashcards for the same objects with no
names on them to use them in the short dialogue to avoid disruption. In
addition, I will integrate writing skill to the other skills and areas in the
lesson. Writing will take place before giving the in-class task. This will help
the students to avoid spelling mistakes.
I
got some feedback from a colleague who observed the lesson as he recorded it. I
asked him to give the negative observations to avoid them next time. His notes
were:
-
Some written words on the
board have spaces between the word letters.
-
The voice of the teacher
was low in some events.
-
The written words on the
flashcards disrupted the students while the short dialogue.
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