Teach English in Meitianhu Zhen - Yueyang Shi

The following essay will serve as a basis to support my lesson plan for young learners. The class consists of ten six-year-old, monolingual learners. Task-based learning will take place according to the theme “Let’s go to the zoo”. The main aim of the lesson is to ensure that the learners, by the end of the lesson, will be able to write down six animal-centred nouns (Ant, bird, cat, duck, eel, frog). The secondary aim of the lesson will be to ensure that learners can identify and pronounce the six newly learnt vocabulary words. I understand this writing topic to feed into aspects of vocabulary and writing, however, I have ensured that the content and materials of this lesson are easy to understand and achievable for beginners. Having a main theme ensures both context and real-life learning. It is already assumed that the supposed theme has been used in the past couple of lessons. Thereby, the learners are aware of what a zoo is. Difficulties involve keeping the learners focussed. To counter this, I will ensure that the theme is consistent and the lesson is varied and quick. Writing the letters correctly may be tricky to grasp for young learners. In this case, I will make sure that learners are familiar with the spelling of each vocab word prior to writing. If the writing task is hard for lower level learners, the teacher, or teachers assistant, will assist the learners. An additional difficulty may be the writing of complicated letters, such as ‘a’ or ‘f’, or the confusion between ‘b’ and ‘d’. To counter this aspect, the learners will trace the letters in the air using gestures and the teacher will ensure that the “tummy” of the letters are the correct way round, using simple and fun gestures and language. I have structured the lesson according to PPP: warmer, presentation, practice, review, production, review and a cooler. The warmer serves as a means to start the lesson on a light, fun and high-energy note and adhere to the main theme of going to the zoo. The warmer in question is duck, duck, goose. I have chosen this game as it is high in energy and everyone can be involved, including the teacher. The presentation segment involves the introduction of the 6 vocabulary words, by using stuffed toys. Its important to consider that some of these stuffed toys may not be available. In such a case, I will use a number of images on cards. The teacher will introduce the topic “let’s go to the zoo” and take out various stuffed animals and feed the learning into a story. For example, “at the zoo we saw a frog”. At this moment, the learners are to repeat the words back to the teacher. This will go on until all 6 animals are covered and drilled. This adheres to the secondary aim of ensuring the correct pronunciation. Under the assumption that there is an assistant teacher, as the new animals are introduced the assistant will write the spelling of each word on the board to familiarise the students with the spelling and writing. The practice segment involves dividing the students into two groups for a spelling race. The teacher will put both the alphabet on the board and an image. The teams must race to put their alphabet letters in the right order of each respective animal. The aim of this section is to familiarise the learners with the spelling of each animal name through deductive reasoning. In other words, using the alphabet letters to aid them in getting the correct spelling of each word. This section allows for mistakes to happen prior to the review. The review section involves the teacher helping the learners to get the correct spelling of each animal. By use of gestures (tracing the letters), sticking the letters, used in the previous game on the board, and drilling phonetic sounds, the students will consolidate their newly learnt vocabulary and pronunciation during this review to aid them in the writing segment. The first part of the production section involves another race of matching animal images to their respective spelling. This will aid in producing the newly learnt language prior to the writing segment. The final production involves a worksheet that aims to get the learners to write out their newly learnt vocabulary. This production of language aims to teach learners how to write animal names from the letters A-F. After this, the teacher will review the common errors on the board and ask for volunteers to come up and write the words on the board. This ensures that learners can write the newly learnt vocabulary and consolidate their knowledge. Finally, the cooler will consist of a spot-the-difference worksheet that adheres to the main theme and helps settle the learners after a high energy and varied lesson. There was potential for an alternative practice a review segment of the lesson involving the teacher taking out images from the bag and the learners are to respond to the teacher accordingly in order to check understanding. This is useful in the unlikely event that the lesson doesn’t go as planned; however, it takes away from the writing aspect of the lesson. If the activities do not go as planned, such as printing difficulties, the board and/or the learners workbooks will act as the main material for writing. There will also be an alternative activity that requires little materials as back up to substitute the activity that does not go as planned. Other mechanisms to support my lesson are that of classroom space. Tables and chairs will be spread on the left and right side of the classroom as much of the space is used for high energy sections of the lesson. The only time writing will take place is during the second part of the production phase and during the cooler. The warmer and presentation involves sitting altogether in a circle. The practice stage involves running from seats on the floor towards the board. The review returns back to bums on the floor and the first part of the production involves the whole classroom space once again. This ensures that the learners aren’t seated the whole time during the lesson which can disable their focus on the lesson. Overall, the supporting essay has shown my lesson plan for young learners in teaching them how to write a number of new vocabulary words.