Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Material Development 3


Material Development 3

Topic: Housing

Hongbo Zhu

 

Level: Low Intermediate – Intermediate

Size of class: 20 students

Age: 14-16

Time: 60 minutes

Textbook: Look Ahead

 

This lesson includes (check those that apply):

文本框: Preparation         Scaffolding           Grouping Options
X  Adaptation of Content   X  Modeling        X Whole class
X  Links to Background          X  Guided practice   X Small groups
☐ Links to Past Learning      X  Independent practice  X Partners
X  Strategies incorporated      ☐ Comprehensible input      X Independent
 
Integration of Processes    Application              Comprehension Checks
☐  Reading      X  Hands-on          ☐  Individual
☐  Writing      X  Meaningful           X  Group
X  Speaking          ☐  Linked to objectives         ☐ Written
X  Listening          X  Promotes engagement       X  Oral

 

1. Warm-up Activity (5-7 minutes):

Purpose: To get students engaged to the topic and exchange personal information through information gaps.

Procedures:

Ø   Ask students to find a partner to ask and answer the questions on the questionnaire. (See appendix A)

Ø   Ask volunteer students to share their answers.

Transition: (from warm up to vocabulary build-up): Yes, as you can see, our topic today is “housing”. Now, let’s look at the following vocabularies:

A house, a tent, a cottage, a cave, a mobile home, a houseboat, a hut, a block of flats, a caravan, (RV), a farm house.

2. Vocabulary Build-up Activity (8-10 minutes):

Procedures:

Ø   Ask students to get into groups of 4.

Ø   Ask students to look up the vocabularies in a dictionary. Each group member can look up several vocabularies and then explain the meanings of the words to the rest of his/her group member.

Ø   Ask students to use 2 minutes to match the vocabularies with the correct pictures. (Appendix B)

Ø   Ask each student to present one vocabulary to the whole class.

3. Pre-listening Activity (5 minutes):

Purpose: to scaffold students with direction vocabulary related to describing a picture.

Procedures: (sequence as needed for activity)

Ø  Key Vocabulary

1.      Ask students to use a minute to write down the words that can be used to describe directions, such as in front of, at the side of, in the center of, etc.

2.      Ask students to work in pairs to compare the words they write.

3.      The instructor will go over the words with the whole class and show the words on a PowerPoint slide. (See appendix C)

Ø   Comprehension Check

Ask the students the following questions:

Ø   Where is the pencil? (It is on the table.)

Ø   Where is the book? (It is in front of the pen.)

4. Listening Activity: (15 minutes)

Purpose:

Ø   Identify the main ideas and details that support the speaker’s purpose while listening

Ø   Organize, compare, and contrast details, examples, and inferred information from three pictures

Ø   To get students using strategies to take notes while listening in order to pay attention to details and accuracy

Ø   To get students listening to listening passages that related to vocabulary words related to housing

Ø   Summarize information from listening passages and individual notes

Procedures:

Ø   Students will work in pairs.

Ø   For the first time, teacher plays the audio without pause. After listening to the first time, students will be asked to choose a picture out of three that the listening material describes after the first play (Appendix D).

Ø   For the second time, audio will be paused for 2 seconds after one or two sentences with a 15 words’ length on average in order to give students time to take notes about the location of the given items.

Ø   For the third time, the aural passage will be played without pause, which caters to providing students a chance to revise their notes and to notice certain expressions that to show the uncertainty such as I suppose, probably, it looks like…etc. (see Appendix E).

5. Pronunciation Activity (10 minutes)

Purpose:

Ø   Recognize the linking sounds of English that are crucial to understanding meaning and pragmatic function.

Ø   Produce the linking sounds of English that are crucial to understanding meaning and pragmatic function.

Procedures:

Ø   Introduce the linking sounds to students and demonstrate the linking sound,

Ø   Students listen to the material while reading the script and ask them work in pairs to find out the linking sounds in the script such as “used to”, “put up”, “ an area” (see Appendix F).

Ø   Teach students pronounce the linking sounds students found in the script explicitly.

6. Speaking Activity (15 minutes):

Purpose:

Ø   Participate in class and group discussions on a variety of familiar and content specific topics

Ø   Formulate, express, and defend individual ideas, opinions, predictions, and inferences

Ø   Evaluate the speech production and its content of self and others

Ø   Deliver speeches to an audience using effective presentation skills

Ø   Integrate vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation into speaking tasks

 

Procedures: (sequence as needed for activity)

Ø  Presentation of the activity

1. Ask students to get into groups of four.

2. Instruction: Among the four students in each group, there will be one student describe a picture of housing (see Appendix G) by using the known vocabulary that they have just learned in the class, and the other students in the group will try to draw a picture of housing according to the speaker’s description. Only the describer can see the picture, and the drawers will interact and negotiate with each other within group in English (The biggest challenge for this task is to prevent students using their

3. The describer should record his/her voice through vocaroo website. Then the teacher will play the voice clip to his/her group member.

4. After all groups finish drawing their pictures, the teacher will play all the voice clip from each group and ask the rest of the students to pick the one who did best in describing the picture.

5. At the end, the teacher will show the drawings from different groups to the whole class, and see which group has the most similar one as the shown picture.

Technology:

Vocaroo (On-line voice recorder): Students will record their own voice on this website when they describing the picture.

PowerPoint: The teacher will show students all the pictures through PowerPoint slides.

Overview:

This listening and speaking class is taught in EFL setting, China. For this listening and speaking class, our target students are high school students with low-intermediate to intermediate level of language proficiency. This communicative-based course aims at providing 20 students from age 14-16 to improve their listening and speaking skills apart from the textbook focuses on grammar they use in school.

The using of vocaroo website which is the online voice recorder will offer them an opportunity to record their own voices and go back to check their own voice in order to let other students to judge who did the best job in describing things, which means who has the highest level of speaking proficiency. It is an effective way to check students’ speaking ability since they can go back to hear the voice clip again and find the problems. This can help them to clearly notice their mistakes and correct the mistakes in the future.

 

 

CALL Portfolio

This is the link for my final portfolio:
http://www.livebinders.com/edit/index/867171

Monday, April 29, 2013

Week 15--In Class Activity

Taichi and I have checked Mixxer site and we have created an account. Sine both of us know a little bit of Japanese, we found a friend who is a native Japanese speaker and said "good afternoon" in Japanese to the person. It will be a good website for language learners to make friends of native speakers of the language they want to learn. Also, it can help language learners to improve their writing proficiency by chatting with native speakers of target language.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Week 13 Reflection--Computer-Based Language Testing

     We have discused how we can use computer in teaching language. Computers are widely used in testing language these days. For example, TOEFL Ibt is a computer-based test, testers has to complete their tests in the conputer lab. The advantage of using computer in testing language are that it is easier to grade the test. The organizations donot need to worry about using people to grade the tests. For listening and reading part, they can use computer to grade, and paople will only grade on the speaking and writing parts, this can definitely save a lot of time. Also, it is convenient for the testers because typing is usually faster than writing.
      There are also disadvantages as well. For example, the computer may stop working sometimes, that is inconvenient to the testers and also the organizations that provide the test. Some test takers may not familiar with computer skills, so the typing speed will directly effect the grade on the test.
      Though there are advantages and disadvantages, it is a good idea to use technology in testing along with the social progress and human development.
    

Week 12 Activity

Chinese culture and language reading and writing class

Cynthia Ahlers, Taichi Hardiman, Hongbo Zhu
  • PURPOSE: 
    • Chinese culture and language reading and writing class
    • Spring Festival, Celebration, Family, Traditions, and Expectations
    • Email pen pals (Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication - ACMC) that will include Chinese language characters and Chinese culture
  • LEVEL OF STUDENTS:
    • High-intermediate level Chinese as a Second Language
    • American 11-13-year-olds
  • END PRODUCT: 
    • The students will get more out of the culture
  • ACCOUNTABILITY:
    • Write down the answers to all of the questions in Chinese, then e-mail it to the teacher for credit

Ask Chinese partner:
SPRING FESTIVAL AND CELEBRATIONS
How do you celebrate Spring Festival?
What clothes do you wear to celebrate?
What kind of music is played to enhance the festivities?
How do you decorate your room during this time of year?
What kind of food do you eat when you celebrate?

FAMILY AND TRADITIONS
How many people are in your family?
Do you have aunts, uncles, and grandparents?
How do you celebrate your birthday?
Could you send an attachment photo of your family?
Do you look like your father or your mother?
What was your favorite gift you got for your birthday last year?

EXPECTATIONS
When did you start learning a second language?
What is your second language?
What activities do you do on your spare time?
Do you play a musical instrument?
Do you play sports?
Do you want to go to university?
What do you want to be when you grow up?

Week 12 Reflection-----Teaching Culture Through CALL

     It is important to teach the culture behind the language as language teachers. Teachers can use a lot of tools to help them achieve their yeaching goals. When I taught Chinese, I will refer my students to certain website to learn certain Chinese traditional festivals and cultures.
     For example, when I taught the Spring Festival, I will ask my students to go online to find answers for the following questions:
1. When is the Spring Festival?
2. What color do people wear?
3. What kind of clothes do people wear?
4. What food do people eat?
5. What kind of special things do people do?
By checking online and answering all the questions by themselves, students will have a deep memory of the Spring Festivsl. After this, I will ask them to post their answers to their blogs in Chinese, in thia way, I can make sure that they really understand the culture.

Week 11--Reflection Writing and Grammar

     There are some online tools that can be used in teaching writing. Socu as purdue website, writing teachers can guide students to go to this website to check MLA or APA format. Blogs and BBlearn are also good tools to ues in teaching writing. Students can post their writing assignment or paragraphs, other students and the teacher can give feedback through these tools. MicroWord can also be used to provide students feedback by teachers. All these tools are really simple and easy to use.
      As for teaching grammar, studnts can check COCA website, fron this website, students can check information of words combination as which word go with certain prepositions, which word modifies another word.
      As language teachers, it will be effective to cooperate these usefuls teaching tools into teaching.