In the first year of the project, the reading skills identified were on the whole more general, like scanning, skimming and identifying main ideas. It was when entering the second year, with the reading texts being longer and more complex, that teachers could go beyond those more general reading skills to deal with those that had not been identified at the start, like identifying the text structure of cause-effect-solution.
Action plans of two units are included, the first one showing how the teachers tackled the knowledge structure of “problem-cause-effect-solution” in Greening your life and the second showing the use of story analysis in Believe it or not.
Teaching of “Greening your life”
Learning objectives:
Students are able to:
| 1 |
identify the main and supporting ideas. |
| 2 |
locate specific information by scanning. |
| 3 |
relate cause to effect and problem to solution. |
Time |
Teaching steps |
Purpose |
Teaching materials |
Lesson One
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Pre-reading stage:
T tells the students the ‘Save the Earth Month’ is coming. Then, T asks Ss why they need to save the earth.
T plays a song related to the overuse of plastic bags. Before listening, T asks Ss to think about one question:
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What is the problem mentioned in the song? |
After listening to the song, T asks Ss the following questions.
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What is the cause of this problem? |
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What are the effects of this problem? |
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What are the solutions? |
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Arouse Ss’ interest |
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Activate Ss’ schemata related to the topic |
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T then shows Ss a picture of a dead polar bear and raises another reason (climate change) why we need to save the earth. T introduces the words related to climate change to Ss. T asks the same questions as the above and brainstorm ideas with students together. T can ask Ss to refer to the vocabulary booklet (p.17 & 18) for ideas.
T tells Ss they are going to read a letter to the editor related to climate change. T asks Ss to point out the features of this text type before reading.
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Help students to brainstorm and understand the words which will appear in the reading material |
Extracts from the F.2
vocabulary booklet |
While-reading stage:
T reads aloud the first and second paragraphs to Ss and explains what happened in Bolivia.
Then, T asks Ss to read the first sentence in paragraph 3, 4 and 5 and match the paragraphs with the correct main ideas on the worksheet.
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Help Ss identify the main ideas of each paragraph
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http://youtu.be/BspJfnwGynw
(What happened in Bolivia)
Reading comprehension WS
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Next, T asks Ss to read silently and complete the table on the worksheet.
T checks answers with Ss and does some reading aloud with them. In between, T can draw Ss’ attention to some useful phrases (are responsible for, turned a blind eye)
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Help Ss identify the supporting details of each main idea |
Lesson
Two |
T recaps the previous lesson through asking a few questions like:
| 1 |
What problem can we see in the letter to the editor? |
| 2 |
What should we do? |
Then T can lead Ss to read the poster for a green idea competition.
Ss answer some comprehension questions in complete sentences. T checks answers with them.
Then, T shows Ss a video clip about the ways of saving the environment. (4Rs) T asks Ss to note down what items they can reduce, recycle and reuse.
T teaches the vocabulary items on different types of rubbish and asks Ss to do p.52-53.
Post-reading stage:
T asks Ss to design a poster for a green idea in the school. The best 3 posters will be posted around the school. |
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Reading comprehension WS
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Teaching of “Believe it or not”
Learning objectives:
Students are able to:
| 1 |
locate specific information by scanning |
| 2 |
make use of pictorial cues given |
| 3 |
make use of contextual clues to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words |
| 4 |
analyse the storyto understand the content and how the writer presented the different story elements |
Time |
Teaching steps |
Aims |
Teaching materials |
Lesson One
& 1st part of Lesson Two |
| Pre-reading stage: |
| - |
T shows Ss a film trailer. T first elicits from Ss the genre(s) of the film. T then moves on to ask Ss about the setting (who and when) and problem of the film. Since the climax and ending are missing, T helps Ss recap these two basic features of a story. |
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T goes through some unfamiliar vocabulary with Ss using a ppt (begged, insisted, sweating, shivered, sighed, werewolf, calmly, whisper, figure, alien)
Some words (like creaked, howl, slammed and trapped) will be handled by using contextual clues at a later stage. |
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T introduces the context of ‘a story writing competition’ to Ss. The winner from each class will get a film ticket. T therefore wants Ss to read the story to get some ideas to write. |
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Activate Ss’ prior knowledge and prepare students for the coming reading task
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Suggested trailer:
http://youtu.be/7SzLBbHvYtE
13th Unit
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| While-reading stage: |
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T first gets Ss to read the topic and guess the meaning with the help of the picture on P.48 |
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T then invites Ss to guess the genre of the story. However, Ss will not be told what the genre is. But they will find that out when they come to the last paragraph. |
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Revise Ss’ skill of using pictorial cues for the theme
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T asks Ss to locate the information of who is involved (characters), and when and where the story is set (setting). |
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T then distributes to Ss the WS, on which the story is divided into seven parts for story analysis. |
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Setting |
Lines 1-5 |
Story Development |
Lines 6-11 |
Lines 12-16 |
Lines 13-25 |
Problem |
Lines 26-28 |
Climax |
Lines 29-33 |
Solution |
Lines 34-36 |
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After eliciting from Ss the ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’, T has Ss read Lines 1-5 aloud and then directs their attention to the language features such as the use of dialogues, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to prepare them for the writing task. |
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After finishing the first column on the WS, T puts Ss into groups of four and assigns one or two groups to work on one of the other six columns for the answers. |
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When time is up, T has the whole class read the lines covered for each column and then invite the groups responsible to share what they have got. |
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T elicits from Ss the features of science fiction and ghost stories. |
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Revise Ss’ skill of scanning to improve Ss’ speed reading skill
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Revise Ss’ skill of guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words by contextual clues
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WS (Story Analysis) + PPT (Story Analysis) |
2nd part of Lesson Two
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| Post-reading stage |
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T helps Ss recap what they learnt in the previous lesson. |
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T consolidates what Ss learnt by completing p.50 and 51 with them. |
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T directs Ss’ attention to Beings with unusual powers and Mysterious settings on P.52 and 53. |
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Prepare Ss for the writing task |
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