Course Goals and Objectives 1) Understand components of successful lesson plans: Yes, I think that was well-summarized. I liked some of the ideas like a column for “notes to self.” As a non-teacher, I might have liked looking at more examples, but I guess I can do that on my own. 2) Skills in creating…
“Will” and PPU Imagine a second class session on “will.” Review of what happened “last week” in his hypothetical class: In a few weeks Tatiana will go to NY. She’ll eat blintzes and see strange people in the subway. Oh yes, she’ll also teach English. In January and February, I’ll visit cert students at the…
Alex’s embedded comments in my paper are in blue and bold. His answers from the generic answer key are plain old blue. I’m the rest. Ginna: Your review is actually quite strong, one of the most coherent and insightful I’ve read so far. It is true that you didn’t hold on to tense vs aspect…
Rationale This is inspired by Alex’s opening presentation in LALP, which I loved; it was funny and engaging, and succeeded in more than just introducing himself to students. It also communicated that he has foibles, and is a member of the class rather than solely its leader. Genevieve also told me about her introductory exercise…
By Alex: Often the most difficult challenge in developing a lesson or unit plan is knowing how to get started. This is especially true where there is no existing curriculum or text to guide you. Freedom can be paralyzing, but it also suggests myriad opportunities for creativity and the chance to put your personal stamp…
Class notes 11/30/09: Modals are there to tell you something about the main verb; they’re supporting verbs. Must and Have To Have to: can take conjugations, auxilliary/modals, past & future [can potentially have the same two meanings as ‘must’] Must: can’t do any of the above [two primary meanings: obligation and conclusion from evidence] ‘Have…
1. The lesson plan is the final stage of a long process that includes beliefs, the constraints, demands and opportunities of the context, and a lesson structure (e.g. Stimulus +Moves). The plan itself is the surface level of this whole process. Analogy: Any serious chef has a philosophy of cooking, or at least a set…
Among the types of correction are: S: I sleeped all morning. That’s why I’m sleepy. T: I sleeped, or…? If the S can correct, it helps them identify a mistake. If they can’t, you know it’s an error and something you can work on. That’s helpful feedback. T: Now tell me what I just said.…
My made-up lesson plan based on Alex’s Islamabad class exercise: Students: Advanced-Intermediate from varied cultures. Goals: Introduce students to key vocabulary in context. Engage and maintain their interest by the gradual unfurling of the story and by placing events into a physical and emotional context to which they can relate. Materials Required: Cuisenaire rods, blackboard…
Ease Definition The teacher’s task: Simplicity, economy of preparing the materials. The more you rely on If you turn to Ss for content of lesson, the richer the lesson will be. Haiku Easy; little prep for the teacher. Ss did research on haikus, explained its history and form, wrote the poems. He had 123 haiku…
Tense Every verb consists of two characteristics: tense and aspect. Tense is time: when an action, event or state of being took place. In English there are three tenses: past, present and future: I go, I went, I will go. Modality Thornbury: “A grammatical means by which interpersonal meaning can be conveyed.” Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman…
Lexicon Core Vocabulary One observation that I made after consulting the dictionary on selected words is that the words we ought to teach first in a group of synonyms are the ones that appear in the definition of the other words. Here are the word groupings he gave as examples. In the first, “angry” is…
Errors: When you get something wrong because you don’t know it. They have to do with lack of competence. Mistakes: When you get something wrong that you really know but you spaced out for some reason. They have to do with performance due to stress, etc. In the Community Blackboard, the prompts guide people through…
Here are notes from Monica Flores’ thesis. One thing I found particularly noteworthy is in bold. The author describes several key ways she consciously learns new words when she hears on spoken (or sees it written) and doesn’t understand it. Noticing Repetition Identifying collocations Conscious decision to use newly noticed words Comparing it to L1…
[Quotes from Teaching American English Pronunciation (Peter Avery & Susan Ehrlich). Chapter 11, Suprasegmentals in the Pronunciation Class: Setting Priorities by Maureen McNerney & Davis Mendelsohn.] Classroom norm has been to devote majority of time and effort to segmentals (individual sounds), and usually vowels. This is because in a multilingual group of ESL learners, vowels…
1. I want to begin with question 3: what it was like working in my group. I’ve worked on another class presentation with Regina and have found her easy to work with: cooperative and willing. I haven’t worked with Tatiana before, but had befriended her back in the beginning of our MAT days when she…
Here is a Quicktime of the PowerPoint we did today. It’s tiny so you can barely see it but oh well. You’ll have to wait a while for it to load, and then you can flip through it by hitting the arrow keys. Connected Speech: Linking, Assimilation & Elition And here is the lesson plan…
Here are the phonology exam questions with Alex’s answers. My own answers are filed in my LALP folder on my computer. 1. An English learner hears the sentence: “I can’t stand the hot weather.” but has trouble getting the meaning. In fact, he can’t determine if the speaker is saying she can or cannot tolerate…
Alex suggested we take notes on this chapter of Planning Lessons & Courses by Tessa Woodward, so I am. Modes of Learning Finding out for yourself: “guided learning encounter” Learner does noticing mostly on their own. But unlike the process of stumbling into an electric fence, this process involves a guide who, rather than subjecting…
This is a summary of the first half dozen or so classes with Alex, since I didn’t keep track digitally during this time. Intro to Alex: Class One For everything that Alex has taught us so far about phonology, he has even more inspired thinking about new teaching ideas. I’m late in catching this up…
