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.