Methods II – LCB TTC

Task-based Lesson Plan.

Process Writing. Second Draft
Alejandra de Antoni – 2009

Task-based Lesson Plan – Process Writing – 2nd Step

The Task:
Students are put in pairs or small groups of three if there is an uneven number of
students and are given a sheet for them to create a quiz to test their partners’
(another pair) general knowledge. They have to create 12 questions and provide the
correct and true answers. To do so, they must be sure of the answers since it is by
means of their questions and answers that their partners’ general knowledge will be
tested. The first 9 questions are prompted, i.e. students are given most of the
language they need to write them. The other 3 are going to be completely created by
them since they are not given any kind of help (however, they will be very well
guided by the previous 9).

Aims:
o By the end of the lesson students will have created a quiz to test their
partners’ general knowledge.
o By the end of the lesson students will have worked on their general
knowledge of the world making it possible for them to use the target language
as a means to exchange information as well as do something that they
actually do outside the classroom (answering quizzes is a very well-known
pastime).

Language to be Worked On: questions with and without auxiliaries.

Outcome:
The expected outcome (i.e. something real that students will have produced after
the lesson) is a 12-question quiz to test their partners’ general knowledge (A
complete quiz is expected: one with its questions and corresponding answers so that
it can be used by the students to actually interview their partners).

Evaluation Criteria:
The quiz must have 12 true-to-life questions with their corresponding answers, which
should be based on reality. This will be checked after the lesson, for homework, by
the students themselves. Each pair of students (or group of students) will take home
the quiz of another pair (or group) so as to check whether the questions and answers
are based on reality.
The questions should also be written accurately enough for the other students to be
able to understand and answer them. Peer evaluation: if the students can answer the
question, it means that they understood it. The teacher will be there, all the time,
monitoring their work trying to make sure that they use the target language and that
they do not use their mother tongue to help them understand some not so accurately

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 Methods II – LCB TTC
Task-based Lesson Plan.
Process Writing. Second Draft
Alejandra de Antoni – 2009
written questions. This needs to be avoided because it is through their successful
interaction in the target language that the task will be evaluated.

Introducing the Task to the Students:

The teacher tells the students that in this lesson they are going to work to
create a quiz to test their general knowledge. The quiz will be created in
pairs and they will use it to test another pair’s general knowledge. It will be
real fun because they will be able to show the rest how much they know
about the world. It may be a lot of fun as well because, in general, within a
classroom students may know different (and sometimes peculiar) facts and it
is really interesting to share them.

Pre-Task (Getting Ready):

The students are asked to answer the Music Quiz on page 20 (New English File
Pre-Intermediate, Student’s Book. See Appendix). To do it, they will carry out
Exercise 1 (the three parts and in pairs. The teacher will round the classroom
monitoring them).
Once they do the three activities, they will check answers with the whole
class. The teacher will then select four questions and write them on the
board. Two of the questions will have auxiliaries (e.g.: questions 1 and 8) and
the other two won’t (e.g.: 7 and 8). Once the questions are on the board the
teacher will ask the students to focus on the two sets and to try to explain the
difference between them. Finally, the teacher will ask them to try to find a
possible explanation for such a difference. The teacher will guide them in the
analysis by asking them to focus on the functions that the wh-words have in
each of the sets (when the wh-word is replacing the subject the question is
formed without auxiliaries).

Task Cycle:
Students are given the photocopy to carry out the task itself. They are first
asked to complete the questions (in pairs or groups of three). The teacher
tells the students that they must know the answers because they will need to
be able to decide whether or not the pair they test has passed the quiz or
not. In order for the students to be able to carry out the task there will be
dictionaries available (two or three will do, depending on the number of
students) and if that is not possible, the students will ask the teacher for help
with any vocabulary doubt. Having access to the Internet would be ideal for
carrying out such a task (because students may need to check some info or
look up specific vocabulary) but it is not essential, of course.

Report Part:
The success of the creation of the task will be confirmed or refuted by the
students themselves. If the pair answering the quiz is able to understand the
questions and therefore answer them, it will mean that the students
succeeded in creating the quiz. We always answer quizzes to have some fun or
to learn a bit more about how much we know about a certain topic. That is
why the most realistic way of checking the quizzes is by means of the
students’ answering them.

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 Methods II – LCB TTC
Task-based Lesson Plan.
Process Writing. Second Draft
Alejandra de Antoni – 2009

APPENDIX:

1. The Task (adapted from Communicative Activity 2-C; New English File
Pre-intermediate Teacher’s Book; OXFORD University Press)

2. The Pre-Task (Music Quiz taken from the New English File Pre-Intermediate
Student’s Book, page 20; OXFORD University Press)

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 Methods II – LCB TTC
Task-based Lesson Plan.
Process Writing. Second Draft
Alejandra de Antoni – 2009