Lesson Plan: Raiche – Drive

I have never taught a lesson based on a song. Yes, for real. However, this song just got so deeply under my skin that I had no choice but to create a lesson plan for it. It is quite meaty because there is a lot to unpack and explore but it is a very engaging and inspiring lesson. At least that is what I think 😀

Lesson Details

Level: B2+-C2

Format: groups (could be adapted for 121); online / offline

Duration: 90′

Materials: access

Procedure:

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Lesson Plan: What’s in Your Kitchen? TPR for Adult Learners

As someone who has been teaching (young) adults at a mostly intermediate level in strict settings from Day 1 of my teaching career, I haven’t had a chance to incorporate TPR into my lessons until last week. Everything I knew about TPR was served under the YL sauce and, therefore, I deemed this approach redundant.

While having the recipe lesson, my student realised that her knowledge of kitchen-related vocabulary was not as good as she would like it to be so we decided to devote our next lesson to filling this gap. I turned to the Internet in search of some inspiration but wasn’t excited about numerous gap-fills and other typical tasks offered for adult learners. Lesson plans designed for YLs seemed way more engaging and I thought that I could give it a go. This lesson was a pure experiment, and it turned out to be one of the best lessons we’ve had so far.

Focus: Vocabulary
Level: A2-B1
Duration: 60 minutes
Learning objectives – by the end of the lesson, student(s) will have:
– been introduced to a range of most common kitchenware-related vocabulary
– practised using new vocabulary in speaking / writing by giving orders to the teacher / fellow students
Setting: online, you and your student(s) should be sitting in your kitchens; could be taught face-to-face if you don’t mind bringing a whole suitcase of kitchenware to work
Materials: These slides and a whole kitchen of realia
Procedure:

Lesson Plan: A Cooking Recipe

It’s a vocabulary and TBL lesson based on this authentic blog post: Super Creamy Vegan Mushroom Sauce Pasta. Originally, it was designed for a 121 lesson, but it can be easily adapted to a group one. It’s good for any student(s), but especially for those who LOVE cooking 🙂

Level: B1+ and higher
Objectives: to introduce a set of useful lexical items for reading (and understanding) and writing cooking recipes; to provide practice in writing cooking recipes
The ultimate goal: to write and publish a cooking recipe of student’s choice
Duration: 1.5-2 hours
Materials: The Recipe, Gap-fill
Procedure:

Lesson Plan: Travel Guide – What to Do in…

This is a lesson plan based on this blog post: https://whatoliviadid.com/2016/09/how-to-spend-48-hours-in-copenhagen/.

Skills: Reading, FL, speaking

Level: B1-B2

Learning objectives – by the end of the lesson, students will have:

• been introduced to a range of functional exponents to make travelling recommendations;
• practised using these exponents in speaking/writing by making recommendations on what to see and do in a city they have visited in the past.

Duration: 60 minutes

Materials: This article, this vocabulary match task, and these slides.

Notes: Can be used with both groups and individual students

Lesson Procedure

Teaching Vocabulary: CELTA Demo Lesson #1

I went totally crazy when I was offered to teach a set of two demo lessons for a group of 8 Upper-Intermediate students at the upcoming CELTA course in August in St Petersburg. Like really, just a year ago I was a trainee myself observing experienced teachers giving demo lessons and being determined to stand in their place as soon as possible. And now, a year after, I did it. Last Friday, I was there, teaching lessons I had spent a week planning and preparing for and holding a Q&A session afterwards.

The requirements for the demo lessons were easy: 2 lessons 1 hour each, one on systems and one on skills of your choice. It didn’t take long to decide that I wanted to teach lessons on vocabulary and reading, my ultimate favourites.

I love teaching vocabulary. The reason behind this is simple: without words, how can you communicate? When deciding on what words to teach, I always start with the topic.

What are some topics we often talk about? What are some topics my learners will most likely discuss outside the classroom? These are two important questions to ask yourself when you decide on vocabulary topic. Emotions seemed a perfect choice since we evaluate everything happening in our lives emotionally. We constantly feel something: anger, stress, frustration, or joy, happiness, and satisfaction. So I’ve chosen 10 adjectives, 5 negative and 5 positive (some of them were taken from English Vocabulary in Use):

• apprehensive                                                     ecstatic
• anxious                                                               thrilled
• frustrated                                                           stirred
• miserable                                                            content
• fed-up                                                                  relieved

My favourite structure for teaching vocabulary is:

1) match & test yourself -> 2) analyze & learn -> 3) memorize & recall -> 4) use & be happy 🙂

Let’s see how it works…

Systems Presentation: Test-Teach-Test

I decided to continue with publishing a small series of posts focusing on Presentation stage.I know some teachers who consider presentation being a bit – well, how should I put it..? – boring. And it can be boring – if you deliver it in a teacher-centred way (like you do it with Presentation-Practice-Production approach). However, there’re some exciting ways to present FL/vocabulary/grammar point, and in this entry, I’ll tell you about one of them: TTT.

What is TTT?

TTT stands for Test-Teach-Test. This approach works for any level and is as simple as a pie. Consider though that you can only implement this approach with students who already have some previous learning experience since it requires them to use their passive knowledge!

So let’s say you want to teach prepositions. How would you do it using TTT?