As part of my Delta course I had to experiment with instructional frameworks and try new approaches. I chose Task Based Learning and designed a lesson based on information I found in the Willis ELT website ( http://www.willis-elt.co.uk/ ).
My students were attending English classes as part of their preparation for the Ielts academic English exam. The lessons we had done so far were particularly exam oriented and focus was mostly on writing and speaking. There was no time for fun and all the lessons focused on gaining skills/strategies that would allow my learners to succeed in this exam. The lessons were quite dry so I thought this would be a great opportunity for something fun.
The lesson was based on a video of a true story about a five year old who used his knowledge of the ABC to help save his father’s life (http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/New-Jersey-Kindergartener-Saves-Father-Life-Spelling-Letters-Dad-Seizure-Car-206971791.html). The tasks followed the TBL framework so I started with a warmer that made use of words from the story and asked my learners to quickly guess what they thought the story was about. I then asked questions and generated discussion that would get them to think more carefully about emergencies and what young children can do in such cases. Students then concocted a story and afterwards reported to the whole class. After the reporting stage, my learners watched the video and found out what had actually happened. We then talked about genre features specific to story telling and focused particularly on past tenses and extreme adjectives. The new language was presented and students used the structures whilst answering questions like ” What kind of emergency have you ever faced? How did you deal with it?” As homework, my students were asked to watch the video again and tell me the story again.
Samples from the lesson
What is the story? What connections can you make?
A five year old son
Some phrases from the story
“use your active listening skills”
They had a chance to talk about something that allowed them to use their imagination.
They got to watch an authentic video and see how close they were to the real story.
They noticed linguistic features which they made use of in later stages of the session.
This was a memorable session and highly motivating one. There was a lot of noise during the session and the grammar facilitated the realization of the intended outcome. unfortunately though, I was unable to predict all the grammar and structures my learners may have needed to complete the task.
The thing my learner said and put a smile on my face
So, my students did take the IELTS exam in December and when they called me the first thing my learner said was, ” I used lots of extreme adjectives when I did the speaking task”. Out of all the sessions we had the most memorable one, the least exam oriented one, was the one that she remembered and mentioned after having taken the exam. This makes me rethink about lots of the material I use in class!
I will follow up with a twist… I used this lesson with my BE students too! Till next time!