Title:
Improving students' confidence and skills in speaking and writing through using student-centred strategies
Type:
Lesson plan
KLA:
English Language
Level:
P2
School:
Tseung Kwan O Catholic Primary School


Background

With the introduction of the small class initiative, teachers of Tseung Kwan O Catholic Primary School would like to take advantage of this opportunity to improve their students’ learning in speaking and writing skills through using more student-centred strategies.

 

 

Implementation

The following teaching unit is one of the units in which the English teachers employed the Six Principles of Small Class Teaching recommended in lesson design. The theme of the unit is “Friends”. It is based on Unit 4 of their textbook.

Objectives

Strategies
employed

Activities

Teaching
resources

A. Reading and appreciating a poem about friends

  1. Reading strategies:
    1. to use the title and pictures to make prediction of the main idea of the text
    2. to make connection with text
    3. to identify rhyming words
  2. Speaking skills:
    1. to describe the pictures systematically by providing general information before specific details  
    2. to practise reading with fluency
    3. to talk about what they like doing with their friends
  • Use of questioning techniques and thinking time during Q&A and whole class discussions
  • Sufficient opportunities to maximize students’ participation in class activities
  • Pair and group activities
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Pre-reading:
    1. Students make use of the title and pictures to:
      1. predict the topic of poem
      2. infer the main ideas of poem
    2. Teacher pre-teaches vocabulary essential for comprehension: “bench, kind, caring, rude, untrue, good times”
  2. While reading:
    1. Shared reading and Q&A with focus on helping students to
      1. recognise and pronounce the words accurately in the text
      2. verify predictions made at the pre-reading stage
    2. (Whole class) Read aloud 1 with focus on fluency – Teacher provides the rhythm using a pair of castanets.
    3. (In groups) Read aloud 2: Teacher points at different groups at random to indicate their turn in reading aloud the different stanzas or lines in the poem. The pace of the rhythm provided will accelerate and the turn-taking will get shorter to add excitement and ensure that students stay alert throughout the activity.  
  3. Post-reading:
    1. Teacher asks students to discuss the following question:
      • Is it more fun playing with a friend or playing alone? Give a reason.
    2. Teacher reviews what rhyming words are with students and they complete Worksheet 1 in pairs
  4. The lessons end by the teacher reminding students of what they learn in the lessons.
  1. Textbook pg. 38 – 39 (Poem on powerpoint)
  2. A pair of castanets for providing rhythm during read aloud 1
  3. WS 1: Rhyming words

B. Talking about indoor and outdoor activities

  1. Language structures and functions:
    1. to use present continuous tense to express what is happening at the moment
    2. to ask questions with “who” and present continuous tense
    3. to use appropriate subject-verb agreement when describing what people are doing
    4. to describe what someone is doing with the correct collocation of verbs and activities
      1. Playing – football, hide-and-seek, the piano, games on the computer
      2. Flying – kite
      3. Making – a model aeroplane
      4. Dancing, climbing a tree, skating, skipping, cooking
  2. Listening and speaking skills:
    • to ask and respond to questions about who someone is and what they are doing
  • Providing meaningful context to enhance students’ participation
  • Collaborative learning through pair and group work
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Lead in activity: Teacher explains target language structure in context using flash cards:  
    • What is he/she doing? What are they doing?
    • He/She is/They are …
  2. Miming Game
    1. Students follow the lead of teacher to mime different actions. Each time teacher asks “What are we doing?” with the whole class responding in complete sentences. Students do not stop their actions until they get the sentence correct.
    2. Teacher asks different groups to mime an action and the class makes sentences to describe what they are doing.
  3. Information gap activity (pair work):
    1. Teacher asks a pair to demonstrate the activity
    2. Students complete the activity in pairs: “Who are they? What are they doing?”
  4. Teacher ends the lessons by reminding students of what they learn in the lessons.
  1. Textbook pg. 40 – 42
  2. Flash cards of activities
  3. Worksheet 2: Information gap (Who are they? What are they doing?)

C. Being little detectives of spelling rules

  1. Language structures and functions:
    1. to use present continuous tense to express what is happening at the moment
    2. to use appropriate subject-verb agreement to  describe what people are doing
    3. to review collocation of target verbs and activities from previous lessons
    4. to articulate rules that govern the spelling of present participles
  • Use of a discovery approach to deduce  spelling rules to enhance students’ participation
  • Collaborative learning through pair and group work

  • Use of questioning techniques and thinking time during whole class discussion
  • Assessment for learning
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Revision: Charades (Game) – Students work in groups. Group leader draws a flashcard and the whole group mimes the action. The fastest group to make a correct sentence about what they are doing gets a score. The group with the highest score wins.
  2. Categorisation (Group work)
    1. Each group gets some big “ing” word cards showing both the infinitive and “ing” forms of a word
    2. Teacher draws 3 columns on blackboard and tells students that the words they have can be divided into 3 groups and gives an example for each category.
    3. Students discuss and decide which category their words belong to in groups.
    4. When the time is up, groups stick their verbs in the appropriate categories on the blackboard and they score one point for each correct answer.
  3. Class discussion: Teacher asks students to explain the rules that govern the spelling of present participles as indicated by the categories of words on the blackboard.
  4. Pair work: Students complete Worksheet 3 “Adding -ing”
  5. Go fish (Game): Group work
    1. Each student gets 2 cards and the remaining cards are shuffled and placed face down between the players.  Players hold their cards so they are able to see them, but no one else can. Before starting the game, students take turns to lay down the pairs of cards they have in the middle area so that group members can help them check to see if they are right.
    2. Each player takes turns to draw a card from the face down pile of cards and puts any pairs that form an ‘ing’ word in the middle area.
    3. The first player gets rid of all his/her cards wins.
  6. The lesson ends with students reviewing what they learn.  
  1. “-ing” spelling rule word cards for categorization (infinitive and present participle forms)
  2. blue tack
  3. Worksheet 3: Adding “ing”

D. Talking about things we like

  1. Language structures and functions:
    1. to use “I like …” to express what they like
    2. to use “too” if they like the same thing as their peers
  2. Listening and speaking skills:
    1. to ask and respond to questions about what they like: “What do you like?” “I like…”
    2. to match spelling with pronunciation
  • Increasing students’ participation through interviews and games
  • Collaborative learning through pair and group work
  • Assessment for learning
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Lead in activity: Teacher shares things he/she likes so as to stimulate class discussions about things students like
  2. Interview (Class activity):
    1. Students review names of things and activities with flash cards
    2. Teacher demonstrates the use of dialogues and introduces target language using the flash cards
      1. I like … . What do you like?
      2. I like …, too. / I like …
    3. Teacher explains and demonstrates how to do the task on Worksheet 4
    4. Students walk around the classroom and conduct dialogues with the target sentence structures.
  3. “What do you like” Bingo Game: Class plays a game of Bingo using the words they put in the grid in Worksheet 4.
  4. The lesson ends with students reviewing what they learn.
  1. Flash cards of objects that Ss like
  2. Worksheet 4: Class interview and bingo game

E. Reading and appreciating a story about true friends (Supplementary)

  1. Reading skills:
    1. to make predictions
    2. to read for specific information
    3. to make inferences
    4. to guess word meaning from context: scared, shore, save
    5. to make connections between text and self
  2. Value and attitude:
    • to become aware that  different people are good at different things
  • Use of questioning techniques and thinking time during whole class discussion
  • Assessment for learning
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Pre-reading:
    1. Class reads aloud the poem on pg. 38 as a warm up activity
    2. Teacher asks questions such as “Who’s your friend? What do you do together? Do you like him/her? Why? …” as prompts for students to talk about their friends and apply vocabulary about qualities of friends
    3. Students make use of the title and the pictures to predict what the story is about
  2. While-reading:
    1. Students read the first paragraph to check predictions made.
    2. Students:
      1. read the second paragraph to find out more about the friends
      2. predict what is going to happen in the story
      3. make connections between text and self
      4. read the last two paragraphs to check predictions made
      5. draw what happens in the story to show understanding
  3. Post reading:
    1. Students discuss the lesson of the story learned and
    2. guess the meaning of unfamiliar words with contextual clues
  4. The lesson ends with the students reviewing what they learn in the lessons.
  1. Worksheet 5: Friends (Story)

F. Can you take a challenge?

  1. Speaking skills
    1. to talk about what they can and cannot do
    2. to ask and respond to questions about abilities
  2. Language structures and functions
    1. to use “Can you..?” “Yes, I can/No, I can’t” to ask and respond to questions about abilities
    2. to use “but” to show contrasting ideas
  1. Collaborative learning through pair work
  2. Increase students’ participation through interviews and games
  3. Assessment for learning
  4. Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Lead in activity: Students review what the characters in the story “Friends” can do and cannot do.
  2. Elicitation (Q&A): Students answer questions about what they can and cannot do.
  3. Practice: Challenges (Pair Work) “Can you do this?”
    1. Students give each other challenges (suggested in Worksheet 7). They have to actually demonstrate in action whether they can do the actions in the challenges or not.
    2. Students write sentences to report what their partner can or cannot do.
    3. Teacher invites several students to share their report with the class.
  4. Students review what they learn at the end of the lessons.
  1. Worksheet 6: Challenges (Can/Cannot)

G. Writing about my imaginary robot

  1. Listening and speaking skills
    1. to speak clearly and pronounce words accurately in a group presentation
    2. to listen for keywords  
  2. Writing skills
    1. to generate and organise ideas using graphic organiser as a strategy
    2. to provide details in their short description
    3. to arrange related ideas into paragraphs
    4. to use “and, but” to connect ideas
  3. Language structures and functions:
    1. to use present continuous tense to talk about what someone is doing in a picture
    2. to use “can” and “cannot” to talk about abilities
  • Increase students’ participation through interviews and games
  • Collaborative learning through pair and group work
  • Assessment for learning
  • Clear statement of learning objectives
  1. Lead in activity: Students sing a verse from a song about a robot with actions. Then, answer questions about the verse.
  2. Pre-writing/Listening:
    1. Students listen to their teacher reading aloud a short description and identify the robot he/she described from a number of pictures.
    2. Teacher demonstrates how to use a graphic organiser to help them brainstorm and organise ideas about the robot.
  3. Writing (Group work):
    1. Students are asked to write about one of the robots in the pictures shown to them and prepare a description about it with the help of the graphic organiser.
    2. Teacher demonstrates how to make use of the information in the graphic organiser to write a short text about the robot.
    3. Students make use of the provided framework for to write their description. Group leaders need to help members decide on the part of the presentation each of them is responsible for.   
  4. Post writing:
    1. Several groups are invited to do a presentation on their robot and their classmates need to listen and identify the robot being described.
    2. Teacher provides feedback on students’ presentations.
  5. Students review what they learn in the lessons
  6. Assignment: Students design their own robots and write a description about it at home.
  1. Song: I’ve got a robot
  2. Group work: Graphic organiser and presentation framework
  3. Worksheet 7: Individual writing (Sets A & B)


 

Acknowledgements

Ms. Fung Mei Yin
Ms. Poon Hoi Ling, Jeannie
Mr. Chan Ching Yuen
Ms. Ng Wing Pui, Erica

Tseung Kwan O Catholic Primary School

 

File download

Worksheet 1: Rhyming words 
103KB

Worksheet 2: Information gap

1,256KB

Worksheet 3: Adding “ing”

36KB

Worksheet 4: Class interview and bingo game

61KB

Worksheet 6: Challenges (Can/Cannot)

58KB

Group work: Graphic organiser and presentation framework

43KB

Worksheet 7: Individual writing (Sets A & B)

66KB

 

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