Using Authentic
Materials in Teaching ESL: Lesson Planning
“Nice to Meet You…Again”
Vocabulary building activity, using newspaper article: 1 hour (60 minutes) total
Objectives--When the students are finished with this activity they will be able to:
Intermediate class of 12, including family members of UN workers from: Italy, Cape Verde, Estonia, Japan, China, Venezuela, Vietnam, Bulgaria
Materials:
Fluency Participation: 20 minutes
Wrap-up: 10 minutes
Note: I felt this NYT article was rich in material that would be useful to ESL students, and could be “unpacked” in many ways. There are lots of collocations to work with also.
Resources: Scott Thornbury’s article, “Teaching vocabulary using short texts1,” strongly influenced this lesson.
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“I Remember it Well”
Learners: advanced beginners (level 2)
Time: 2 hours (120 minutes)
Skills: listening, grammar, reading, vocabulary, writing, speaking, pronunciation
Objectives (by the end of the lesson, the students will be able to):
Warm-up (15 minutes)
Conduct a conversation about the memory words (or tone of voice) that they heard.
Communicative practice (20 minutes)
play the song again: ask the students to note how the couple corrects each other and ways that we correct different people when we are talking with them:
revisit the theme of memory with a different song, poem, short story, or news radio or TV story or news article (using past progressive—what were you doing at the time of:….? such as what were you doing when the Twin Towers were attacked? when Kennedy was assassinated? when Hurricane Sandy hit? when a blackout occurred in August )
“Nice to Meet You…Again”
Vocabulary building activity, using newspaper article: 1 hour (60 minutes) total
Objectives--When the students are finished with this activity they will be able to:
- Identify words in the article that relate to the
Internet
- Use included Internet-related vocabulary words
in sentences
- Practice fluency on the topic of online
‘friending’ or dating
Intermediate class of 12, including family members of UN workers from: Italy, Cape Verde, Estonia, Japan, China, Venezuela, Vietnam, Bulgaria
Materials:
- Edited (shortened) version of “Nice to Meet You
… Again”--an article by Henry Alford, from The
New York Times, Sunday, June 28, 2013 (copies for each student)
- I edited down this article to about half its
original length, and tried to keep the focus tighter than the original
- Distribute a copy of the edited article for each
student
- Ask the students how much they use social media,
and which social media sites they use
- After they have shared their experiences with
social media, ask them whether they have ever had the experience of meeting or
bumping into someone and not quite knowing where they had met them
before….? Elicit short responses.
- Then distribute the article and ask the students
to circle (or highlight) any words/terms that relate to the Internet. Tell them you will give them 15 minutes to
read and identify the terms.
- After 10 minutes, give them a 5-minute warning
and tell them they should have more than 8 terms—so if they have fewer, they
should read again.
- Vocabulary
identification:
- Ask each student to identify one word (or
phrase) they found that relates to the Internet, and T. lists them on the
whiteboard.
- Then in pairs, ask the students to write short definitions
for the words they have identified and come up with a sentence—different from
the one in the article—using each word (each pair will be defining 2 words [or
phrases] and making 2 sentences).
- Have the students share these words and
sentences with the larger group.
- Ask if there are any questions about these words.
Fluency Participation: 20 minutes
- Ask ss. write a paragraph that describes a time
when they mistook an online ‘friend’ for a real ‘friend’, or a time during
which they saw someone they recognized, but couldn’t place them—and how they
reacted (this can be real or fictional)
- In (different)
pairs, have the students exchange paragraphs and read each others’ writings.
Wrap-up: 10 minutes
- Have the students reconvene in the large group and
share their experience of reading each others’ paragraphs
- Go over any questions
- In the next hour (or the next week), use the
same article to teach a language function—correcting someone. Distribute copies of the same article and ask
the ss. to circle/highlight words or phrases that relate to correcting someone
they meet (or ‘meet’ again). Then ask
the students to replace these words or phrases with other words or phrases that
have the same meaning.
- In groups of 4 have the students share their
choices and their substitutions.
- Alternatively, divide the article by paragraphs,
and assign different paragraphs to different groups of students—using the same
steps.
- Another vocabulary exercise could be to have
students circle or highlight all words that have to do with manners or
etiquette.
Note: I felt this NYT article was rich in material that would be useful to ESL students, and could be “unpacked” in many ways. There are lots of collocations to work with also.
Resources: Scott Thornbury’s article, “Teaching vocabulary using short texts1,” strongly influenced this lesson.
*******************
“I Remember it Well”
Learners: advanced beginners (level 2)
Time: 2 hours (120 minutes)
Skills: listening, grammar, reading, vocabulary, writing, speaking, pronunciation
Objectives (by the end of the lesson, the students will be able to):
- Differentiate between the present and past tense
in dialogue
- Observe the role tone and intonation play in
dialogue
- Use the vocabulary in the song and fluently
communicate using vocabulary
- Discover that speaking English with a foreign
accent can still be done with fluency, clarity, and accuracy
- purchase or locate the song “I Remember it Well”
on the Web
- find the lyrics handout on the Web; correct the
inaccuracies; print copies
- create a lyrics handout that separates the “he”
lines from the “she” lines
- create an exercise handout with two columns:
- purchased copy of “I Remember it Well” from
iTunes ($.99)
- handout of complete song lyrics as written
- handout of song lyrics divided by “he” and “she”
- handout for exercise
Warm-up (15 minutes)
- “I
Remember it Well”: write “remember” on the board:
ask ss: what do they think of when they hear/see the word “remember”
elicit words such as:
memory, past, nostalgia, growing old, childhood or youth, romance,
mistaken memory, forgetting
ask ss: if a couple is remembering their past romance, what kinds of
words/dialogue might come up?
elicit words, thoughts, such as:
past love, lost love, regret, sentimentality, feeling foolish, embarrassment,
being right or wrong, being kind to each other, correcting each other
- Write
on the board several vocabulary words they might not be familiar with: (15
minutes)
- tenor
- baritone
- rendezvous
- carriage ride
- Tell
ss you will play the song. Ask them to
listen for the theme of memory and to jot down any words (or tone of voice)
that indicates mistaken memory. (15 minutes)
Conduct a conversation about the memory words (or tone of voice) that they heard.
Communicative practice (20 minutes)
- Elicit a conversation about memory and how the
couple talks about the past.
- How would they describe the relationship between
the man and the woman. Do they have an
opinion about whose memories are correct?
- Ask them whether they have ever had a similar
conversation with someone about the past (or overheard a similar conversation)
and to describe it.
- Ask the ss. whether they remember any verb
tenses that were used
- students will probably say “past tense” and
“present tense”
- ask when the present tense is used and when the
past tense is used; they may or may not remember
- students will probably say “past tense” and
“present tense”
- give the ss a handout with two columns: present
tense & past tense
- play the song again, asking the ss to note down
which verbs are present and which verbs are past
- distribute a handout with blanks for each of the
past tense verbs (simple past) and have them fill in the blanks
- Pairs work: distribute a handout with blanks for
each of the disputed “facts” and see if they can come up with other options:
e.g., we met at ten, we met at six; I was early; no you were on time….
- Ask them to discuss why the lyricist made the
choices he did and whether they were good choices.
- ask students whether they think this song is:
happy or sad, sweet or mean, realistic or silly
play the song again: ask the students to note how the couple corrects each other and ways that we correct different people when we are talking with them:
- ask students to pair off (with different pairs
than before) and discuss the ways we correct (with words and with tone of
voice/body language):
- classmates
- spouses (or significant others)
- dates
- children
- siblings
- workmates/colleagues
- our students
- our teachers
- people in service industries who are assisting
us
- classmates
- as a whole group come up with a list of words
and expressions to use when correcting others; also discuss how we make
corrections with tone of voice, facial expression and body language
revisit the theme of memory with a different song, poem, short story, or news radio or TV story or news article (using past progressive—what were you doing at the time of:….? such as what were you doing when the Twin Towers were attacked? when Kennedy was assassinated? when Hurricane Sandy hit? when a blackout occurred in August )