Creative Lesson Plan by Çağla Usta and Berke Sarısoy

by Çağla Usta and Berke Sarısoy FLE Junior Students/ 2015

We are two junior students at FLE Department in METU. This term within Teaching Language Skills course, we were supposed to prepare a micro-teaching demo based on grammar teaching. Our language focus was first conditional and the student profile was adult learners in a private language course. They were mixed age, multinational and A2 level learners.

Considering our student profile, we need to design a lesson which involves speaking skill and multinational elements for appealing to adult learners. Therefore, we choose the topic ‘’Superstitions’’ because it is a universal topic and we can address to their culture as well.

Brief description of our lesson plan:

PRESENTATION: 

• The teacher opens the lesson by talking about a memory which she shared with her mother.

She says “A few days ago, I called my mother, but she was crying. I asked her what happened. She said that she broke her hand mirror. I thought that it was really important for her, but she said it was an ordinary one. Then I could not get the problem. She acted weird for days and I just let it go. This morning, I watched a cartoon, in this cartoon; an old man was also acting weird, like my mother and I figure out the problem. Let’s watch this video together and find the problem together.”

• The teacher shows the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZPMe2efsDA#t=0m50s

• After watching the video, the teacher elicits the word ‘’superstition’’ and divides the board into two columns. She writes on one side “bad luck” and “good luck” on the other side. Then she shows the pictures of the objects seen in the video one by one, such as four-leaf clover or black cat, etc. While showing these pictures, she asks the students to predict which object belongs to either “bad luck” or “good luck” column.

• After categorizing the pictures, the teacher asks students to think about one interesting superstition specific to their own culture and share it with their partner. After sharing their superstitions, each student utters his/her partner’s answer. For example, “My friend says that in her country, wearing red shoes brings bad luck.” Then, the teacher adds them on the board.

 

• The teacher clarifies both meaning and the structure of the conditional clause (specifically Type 1)  on the board. She elicits the whole sentence by asking the concept which checking questions. She emphasizes affirmative, negative and question forms of the conditional clause as well.

PRACTICE:

• In the practice part, the teacher uses back-chain drill as the controlled activity. She distributes the chunks of a conditional sentence written on big cardboards. The teacher begins with the last chunk of the sentence (bad luck) moving toward the previous (have). As she utters the words, each student will come and stick a word on the board in the correct order. At the end, they create the whole sentence in this way.

                                                                  

                                                                                      

• As a free activity, the teacher introduces a game which is called “Treasure Hunt”. She states that one volunteer will go outside and wait until asked to come. Meanwhile, the teacher gives different objects to students such as a four-leaf clover, a ladder, etc. Then she gives each student a clue written on a card about a different object. When the hunter returns back, the teacher explains that s/he will ask questions to his/her friends and follow their directions to reach the treasure. The teacher leads the hunter to the first person.

PRODUCTION:

• In production part, the teacher introduces a suspenseful activity. She writes on the board NO PEN= DEATH. She asks students to try to imagine how a “no pen” situation could lead to “death” as a result. She states that they have to start from NO PEN situation and write at least 5 conditional sentences until they reach “DEATH”.

No pen= no notes

No notes = no study

No study= fail

Fail= no diploma

No diploma= no work

No work= no money

…

• She wants them to become creative and even absurd. For example, they will write: “If you do not have a pen, you will not do your homeworks. If you don’t do your homeworks, you will not pass the exam.”etc. They will continue until they reach DEATH situation.

• After finishing, they share their chain of events to each other. Then the teacher shows how she ended up with ‘death’ and asks them to compare their chain of events with the original one.

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  Although we carried out this lesson as a demo, we had a lot of fun with our classmates, especially during treasure hunt game. It is a fact that most of us have been taught grammar deductively so far. Thus, we tend to consider a grammar lesson as boring and mechanical. However, in our lesson plan, we try to show that a grammar lesson does not need to be boring. We can make it colorful with the help of engaging and joyful activities.This lesson and the activities can be improved and adapted to different contexts in real classroom, according to the different needs and student profiles. As in every lesson plan, how you conduct is up to your imagination and creativity!