Lesson plan

Lesson plan Course: First Certificate (Level B2). Number of students: 6 (15-18 years old) Topic: Mobile phones and communication: preparing an essay Aims: To encourage students to think about the importance of communication To develop critical thinking skills by discussing different points of view To promote collaborative work by creating a “pros and cons” chart To help students organize ideas in order to produce a piece of writing (essay) Before the class Students are requested to take their phones to class (having previously asked permission to their parents). One day before the class students receive a question by whatsapp: “How much do you use your mobile phone when you’re with your friends? They are asked to think of the answer and develop it in class, orally, on the following day. Warm-up Students share their answers in class and give examples of the different things they usually do with their phones. Presentation Students watch a presentation on Voicethread about the evolution of means of communication, each slide shows and describes different devices (telegraph, dial phone, press button phone, phone box, mobile phones, more modern mobile phones, smarthphones). Practice 1. Students are asked to interview two people from the institute (they might be students from other classes, or teachers) asking the question: What are the pros and cons of mobile phones?. The interview should be recorded by using their mobile phones, either as a video or audio (if only the audio is recorded, a photo of the interviewee might be taken). 2. Students get back to the classroom and by using their phones, they embed both files on a Padlet wall, which is previously prepared by the teacher and sent to them by e-mail. If they cannot work with padlet on their phones, two laptop computers will be provided so they can work on them. 3. On this padlet (titled “Do mobile phones foster communication?”) they have to open a text box and summarize the opinions of the two people they interviewed. They are asked to use “reported speech” to write about both views). 4. Having read all the ideas expressed on padlet, the whole group discuss the answers they recorded, as well as their own ideas. Production 1. On the same padlet, they collaboratively create a chart with “pros and cons of using mobile phones”. 2. The teacher sends each student a Google document (as title: name of the student and “mobile phones”), by e-mail, where they find two articles related to advantages and disadvantages of using mobile phones. Half of the class is asked to read one of the articles whereas the other half should read the second one. Students exchange ideas about both articles and verify if the points they wrote in the chart (on padlet) are mentioned in the articles. Homework: 3. On the same Google document they are asked to do an assignment. Each student has to write an essay, on the following topic: “Mobile phones make communication easier, not better” Do you agree? As the students are preparing for the FCE they are given two ideas to develop, and have to add a third own idea. Students’ homework will be corrected on the document where they write the essay, giving them feedback on their work by adding comments or suggestions to the Google documents. 4. Follow-up activity: Students are asked to create collaboratively, a comic on Storyboardthat. As they are six students, they work on the same account and each one of them create one box, including a situation involving mobile phones and certain language functions (inviting, suggesting, accepting, refusing, giving advice, etc). One student starts the activity and a second student should continue it using the same characters and can create new ones. The third student continues, etc. Finally they will have created a comic. This activity is carried out as homework and presented in class. They are asked to dramatize the comic.

Storyboard: creating and learning

Students are usually keen on comics and cartoons. That's why storyboard is a fantastic tool to engage them in using certain vocabulary, language functions or anything one wants to teach. I designed this comic for my Adol 5 students, in order to work with expressions for inviting, suggesting and refusing. I will send the storyboard by e-mail and they will read and act out the story in class. Later we will classify the expressions into the three functions mentioned above, and add some more to each category. I will explain how to create a storyboard on my computer, and at home, they will have to put the expressions into practice by producing their own cartoons and share them with the rest of the class.
Made with Storyboard That

Padlet: a conventional activity, an unconventional tool

Another way to improve speaking and writing skills. Once again, the third part of the PET speaking exam is the focus of this activity. In this case students will be able to work from home, to practise how to describe a picture and to learn from their classmates. I made emphasis on vocabulary as I see that they still have a lack of vocabulary when they have to perform the activity. So, this task will be done from home, and we will see their contributions in class, using my computer. As it has been suggested, more photos will be embeded in order to avoid repetition of ideas or vocabulary.

Learning grammar through stories

Voicethread provides teachers a great resource to develop many kinds of activities, involving audiovisual aids. I chose it to present a grammar point: the third conditional. Many students hear the word "grammar" and think of a fixed set of word forms and rules of usage. I have found that, when I teach a grammar point by presenting the forms and the rules, it results in bored students who can produce correct forms on exercises and tests, but make errors when they try to use the language in context. I designed this activity to work with my FCE students. In class, they watched and listened to the story I had prepared. As it is about part of my life, they felt interested in knowing more details about it, so I gave them the chance to ask me anything they would like to know (and I would like to share!) about it. I stopped it before showing the last image where the third conditional is finally presented. In that moment we analysed how to talk about consequences in the past due to actions in the past. Later, I showed them how to form a third conditional sentence and explained we can also use it to express regrets. Fianlly, they were asked to think of some moments of their own lives and use the third conditional to talk about "what would have happened if....". They said they wanted to create their own voicethreads, but we haven't seen any of their productions yet.

Story time!

Storybird is a great tool which gives us the possibility to create stories for our students, or to teach students how to produce their own stories. The story I created for my 7-year-old students was thought to practise descriptions, action verbs, and to encourage them to create characters with different features. This group is particularly restless but they listened to the story really quietly and were eager to draw and describe fantastic creatures or animals by themselves. I presented the story on my laptop, and that, made the difference!

My story on Storybird: Lily has got an idea!

Using Voki in the classroom

This funny looking character was thought to encourage my 7-year-old students to listen to stories and answer some short questions which can be asked using Voki. I've seen that they find it exciting talking to somebody (or something) that appears on a screen. It's like magic for them and in this way, they lose the inhibitions they usually have when they are asked to speak in English to a real person. I used it as the introduction of the story I created on storybird. Jimmy the Koala

Google Slides: Appearance and Personality

This great technological tool gives us the possibility to develop speaking, reading, writing and listening skills. Nowadays it's almost unthinkable to work without images and sound, but with google slides we can also let students think, and work interactively. The aim of this task is to revise and introduce vocabulary related to appearance and personality. This activity was thought for students who are preparing for the First Certificate Exam. It will enable them to: work on word formation, talk about themselves, talk about other characters or people, learn idioms, and of course, have some fun too! As students don't have their own computers in class, I presented the google slides on my laptop and they worked in pairs, discussing the answers and writing down the new vocabulary and idioms on their notebooks, or some of them, on their mobile phones. Then, the answers and comments were shared with the whole class. Afterwards I sent them the presentation by e-mail. The activity took an hour aproximately.