As TESOL professionals, we are sometimes asked to teach classes which focus on a particular skill, but, as we discussed in class, this does not mean that we ignore the other skills completely. Think back to your first mini-lesson. You likely targeted one or two skills in particular, but I want you to think about how you might integrate all the skills into that lesson.
In responding to this blog assignment, you should post your response as a comment to this post. First, review your mini lesson briefly, outlining the ways in which you targeted some particular skill or skills. Then discuss in detail how you might integrate other skills into your lesson, and how this skills integration would improve the original plan. Note that your response should be a minimum of two paragraphs in length, and should provide sufficient detail that we can (1) remember your lesson and what you did, and (2) imagine with you how the additional skills targeting would enhance the lesson.
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My mini-lesson was a role play around a visit to the post office. The learning objectives were to give my learners words and expressions that would normally be used in conducting a post office conversation. We practiced this in the model. Overall I wanted to increase their confidence in being able to use English to meet their needs in a specific situation in their everyday lives. The mini-lesson targeted listening and speaking skills.
ReplyDeleteThis lesson could be improved by integrating all 4 of the basic language skills as follows: Presentation of the vocabulary could be much more interactive by involving the class in some hands-on work with actual items from the PO: packaging, forms, stamps, etc.
Reading the forms and practice in filling them out as well as addressing letters and packages would integrate reading and writing.
The practice model would still work for listening and speaking, but more could be done with opening it up for free conversation. More advanced learners could do a role play without the preliminary dialog I used.
I might look for a simple description of the Pony Express riders for further integration of reading. We could then have a conversation around the differences between then and now. Might design a simple cloze exercise (with prompt list for the completions)about a visit to the post office that they could complete. Would also see if any of them would like to write a post card to a friend/relative.
For my kindergarten lesson about feelings, I targeted mostly listening, as well as some speaking. While I had words on my powerpoint, I didn't spend as much attention on reading. Since I targeted my lesson toward younger learners, I didn't integrate writing or reading as much because, in kindergarten, they would just now be introduced to the skills. I did have a place on my coloring sheet for the students to trace the word 'happy' but that is about it.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how easy it would be to integrate reading and writing with such young students. If they are encountering reading and writing for the first time in kindergarten, there is only so much that I could expect them to do.
I think that, in a real classroom, I could have the next writing practice, such as tracing letters in a notebook, be feeling words.
My second mini lesson will be on checking in at the hotel, as my overall course theme is travelling. I have originally planned mostly listening and speaking exercises. I will be starting out with a video of the people arriving to a hotel and checking in, then I have a mixed up dialogue for a small group work where the students will have to put he phrases in the right order, after that I have a role-play dialogue when the students will have to practice speaking and take notes while talking to their partner. I had another speaking activity originally planned, but now I will change it to a short writing activity to integrate all skills.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I will have listening during the video, reading during the mixed up dialogue activity, listening, speaking and some writing during the role-play, and at the end I will ask the students to write an e-mail to their friend or family member telling them in what hotel they have stayed and providing all the details about their stay, in case they want to join them.
I think this way I will be able to integrate all 4 skills in a natural and meaningful way. All the exercises that I am planning have a real-life application as a purpose.
Oops, I just saw that I was supposed to talk about my last lesson.
ReplyDeleteWell, in my last lesson, which was on “Getting around city”, I had mostly listening a speaking: I had a video when people were giving directions, I had a teacher giving directions and the class following them on the map, these would be both listening. I also had listening and speaking during the two–way-knowledge-gap activity, when the students had to mark the buildings on their maps. The last one that I planned was a role-play dialogue, which would also include listening and speaking mostly.
The way to include writing and reading in my first lesson is not very easy, as people mostly give directions orally and not on paper. However, there are some situations when one person has to write directions down and to sketch a little map for another person, so they can take the directions with them. I could have an assignment where the students would have to write down how to get somewhere, so another person could take that piece of paper with them.
As far as reading, I think my homework assignment that had a MapQuest involved would be a good reading activity, as the students would have to read the website and the directions to have it done.
My first mini-lesson was written as part of a full lesson plan. I had a business retreat theme and had integrated different sections of the lesson plan for a video dialog (listening), a discussion portion (speaking), and writing. I did not have a reading section, but I can add one. For example, I understand that Oracle Corporation rented the Palace at Versailles one year for a party to celebrate sales growth. I’ll find something like that and add it to the plan.
ReplyDeleteAfter receiving student and teacher comments on my mini-lesson, I made a number of changes to make it more interactive. I added a vocabulary game and eliminated some of the group discussion about attire (although there is till group discussion in the plan). I also added a competitive game on sentence formation that I think executives would enjoy.
I have found these lesson plans to be a good exercise and integrating all four skills into each plan will be a fun challenge.
My last mini lesson was over rhyming words. I had the Ss listen to a poem read aloud, I gave them the first word in a rhymed pair and they were to listen and identify the other rhymed word. Then the Ss had to think of other words that rhymed with that pair. This was to continue for the entirety of the poem, and then then the next mini lesson (though in class I presented it as one and decided it actually should be separated) was the practice of pronunciation on problematic minimal pairs within the given rhymed word sets.
ReplyDeleteIn this lesson there is a lot of listening and speaking but not any reading or writing on the part of the Ss. To integrate those skills, perhaps I could have had the Ss read through the poem and try to identify the rhymed word pairs on their own (no pairs) and then have them listen and re-evaluate their work. In this way they are reading, but they are also testing their mental pronunciation skills in a way, or perhaps it's just reading skills, to see if those same words sound the same to the S. Remember that by this point in the lesson they have already been explicitly taught about rhyming words and practiced them in a stilted manner and now they were seeing them in a real context. As far as writing goes, perhaps instead of asking Ss to verbally give more examples of words that can create a set out of a pair, they could have taken a few minutes to jot down their own ideas, compare them with a partner (for peer learning sake in case some Ss weren't quite getting the concept, this would provide an opportunity for peer teaching/learning), and then as a class create the list on the board as the original lesson did.
Now if only I could come up with ideas on how to integrate skills this easily for my next lesson...
My first lesson was on the future tense, it targeted reading and speaking skills. I read the class a small short story using mainly future tense verbs then asked the class to recollect on said story. Then I asked the class to create their own mini future tense stories based on picture given to them. Then we briefly started discussing weather and the future tense.
ReplyDeleteTo change this lesson where we could use all skills, I would do what we did on class on Wednesday. I would provide the class with newspapers that discussed activities going on in the community and the weather. I would have students work in groups in two that were assigned a specific day and have them each right a story of what plan do that day. I would walk around the class helping with each group. Then I would have one member of each group read aloud their groups assigned day plan to the class.
My first mini lesson for 10 to 12 year old low-intermediate students was about describing what somebody is doing, as a part of describing people. First, I explained the form and usage of present progressive tense, which is often used when we describe actions. Students exercised this by saying what the cartoon characters are doing in the pictures I showed them, and reading a dialogue out loud. Then, we played a game in which several students came in front one by one to draw a card and demonstrated the action written in the card, and others guessed and described what s/he was doing.
ReplyDeleteThe main focus of my lesson was speaking, and perhaps students also practiced a little bit of reading with the dialogue. On the other hand, I didn’t pay as much attention to listening and writing activities. To promote writing skill, I could give them a handout which has some pictures of various pets, and have students to choose one of them and write a missing pet advertisement. This activity would require them to use adjectives, which they learned in class, to describe the pet’s appearance. For listening skill, I might show them a short part of TV series and let them figure out what they were doing in that episode. I also came up with an idea to include reading part! After randomly distributing four different kinds of handouts which describe one of four people in the picture that is put on the black board, I would let them read the handout for a while and then decide which of the four persons each student has got. Then, students are to find other classmates who got the same person and make a group. This might be a good idea to group them up randomly.
In my first minilesson, I had the class learn about using Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to take light-rail trains around Dallas. I had lots of materials (schedules, system maps, vocabulary list, an in-class exercise, and an extra-class assignment). As I look back at my lesson plan, I am sure I tried to do too much, at least during the minilesson.
ReplyDeleteAs far as skills, I had the students listen a lot (to me) and maybe do some reading of schedules and vocabulary and such. There was little opportunity for them to speak or to write. While I do think that the receptive skills are important in the lesson, as they mirror the real-life situation of taking public transportation (that is, as a user of public transport, I need to receive timetable and map information and process that information: it's not really an occasion for me to dispense [output] information), I do think it might be easy to incorporate other skills.
For example, a bit of role play in groups could help students speak: pair the students up and have them work on some simple exercises that I would provide. I would give them combinations of A and B points (departure and destination) and a time (for arrival at the destination or for departure at the origin). In pairs, one student could play the passenger who is wanting schedule information, while the other student could play the info-line dispatcher who looks up the information and provides it to the other student.
Writing is a bit more challenging, but I could have the students answer some questions, either individually or in groups. These could be survey-type questions, such as "What do you like or dislike about public transport?" and "What would you change about our public transport system?" or "What did you learn about DART that you did not know?" Having the students write out answers, either individually or in groups, then read them out loud to the class, would integrate writing, speaking, and listening (and reading - at least the original questions).
In my mini lesson the student learn how to give and receive directions. Another skill I would like the students to gain form the activity is for them to make their one direction and be abol to guide a person. The students will make there own map of UTA campus, then the student will write their own directions of were to go. However, I believe that the challenge of this activity is the way the student will interpret the directions and give them because not all the students are going to have similar worlds or ways of giving direction.
ReplyDeleteEven though we have talked about different vocabulary words they could use to give directions. The students righting their one directions of a map will show their ability to give and write directions. This new skill will improve my lesson plan because the students will have a better understanding on giving and receiving directions. Also it will show their creativity and it will help them improve their knowledge of the language and style.
In the first part of the mini lesson students reviewed the previous class with written descriptions of jobs: “What jobs do the people have? The task was to match each job description with the kind of job in the world. Then in the second part was to write a description of each picture: Where do they work? What do they do? And what is their job tile? The third part was to correct wrong information describing on the kind of jobs high school students prefer to have from a graph.
ReplyDeleteThe first task can be integrated into listening and speaking skills. Ask students to make a pair then ask them to describe the job to each partner. Half of worksheet is about various kinds of job description. And the other half of the worksheet is job titles. Each partner is supposed to guess what the job is when their partner describes the work of a given job in their own level of understanding. Students are encouraged to elaborate the given job description. The third part which is about extracting information from a given graph can be integrated for the skills of writing and reading. A short reading paragraph is given to the students. Then students are to find a wrong description for the paragraph, then to write a short essay about what do they want to do after graduating High school or College. By this was these four skills can be done in a class with one topic.
I will evaluate the lesson that I turned in, which was different than the one that I taught in class. The terminal objective for my submitted lesson was for students to learn how to successfully hold a conversation about Valentine’s Day and how to write a Valentine to a friend, and though it actually included all four skills, I have some suggestions how I could improve it.
ReplyDeleteIn my original lesson, students will a) read a Power Point, 3 written dialogues, and a Valentine's Day card with a pre-written message. Students will b) listen to 2 brief video clips, listen to a classmate practice asking about Valentine's Day plans through the dialogues, listen to classmates reading aloud pre-written Valentines day cards, and listen to a love story read aloud by a partner. Students will c) write a brief love story and are assigned homework to write a Valentine's day lesson to a friend. Students will d) speak by practicing asking about Valentine's day plans through the dialogues, and by reading aloud a pre-written Valentines day card in front of the class.
My suggestion to improve my original lesson in skills integration is to incorporate more writing and some reading by handing out comprehension questions for the videos. Writing seems to be the skill that I focused on the least in the original lesson.
William Mastropieri said
ReplyDeleteMy first mini-lesson was on introductions,
jobs and job description. I have thought how I could incorporate reading and writing in this lesson. I could of given them a hand out in
which they could check off and mark the different people who are introducting themselves and what jobs they had. This would assure me that they are all listening to their classmates.
They could tell me more about their jobs.
I have a book on jobs. I could have them read this as an assignment.
My second lesson is something that I can really get excited about. This will be on job interviews. This could match up well with my first mini-lesson. I want my students to read over certain job descriptions. They can then fill out a job application.
I want to show a power point demo on an actual job application. I will then perform a dialogue
using stick figures. I will question them, they will question me. Various answers could be shown
using power point.
Skill integration
ReplyDeleteThe main objective of my first mini lesson is to introduce common clothing and purchases vocabulary and practice the use of these vocabulary items.
In my lesson, I asked students to look at the pictures in their handouts and I started asking questions about the items included in their handouts, e.g. do you have a pair of athletic shoes? Where can you buy them from? Asking such type of questions promotes interaction in the classroom providing practice for the listening and speaking.
Ss. where directed to fill out a list of things they have, things they don't have and things they need to buy which provided a writing practice for writing lists as well as a reading practice since there is a written dialogue that Ss. Had to work in pairs to read and then practice by substituting items in the actual dialogue to create new dialogues.
I also handed out envelopes containing paper dolls and cloths’ cut-outs + pictures of cleaning and kitchen equipments. Ss. were directed to work in pairs to practice dialogue with each other which provided additional opportunity for speaking and listening practice.
As can be seen from the brief outline I provided above, the focus of this mini lesson, and the entire course, is on speaking and listening with minor attention provided for reading and writing.
I believe that for the purposes of this lesson, the appropriate weight is given for each skill. However, in future lessons I am planning to incorporate more reading (by providing store ads where ss. Have to read them) and writing (by filling out rebate forms) in my future lesson.