PG Cert ELT and Professional Practice/ Delta Lesson Plan

Name Date: 13/11/2012 Please underline as appropriate:

Diagnostic /LSA1/ LSA2/ LSA3/ LSA4
Elizabeth Pinard
Length: 60 minutes Skills - Speaking/writing/reading/listening

Level: Upper IntermediateSystems - grammar/lexis/discourse/phonology

General overview of the group of learners and the course

Overview of the group

The students in this upper intermediate class are adults of around 18-40 years of age. The class has been running for one
week so far and takes place at a private language school in Leeds, U.K. It takes place for six hours per week with two hours
each on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It was set up as a teaching practice class, hence the rather patchy
timetable. As of last week, the total number of students registered in the class was 15. Attendance is, however, voluntary
and, not surprisingly, erratic. We have not yet experienced full attendance at the current total number of students.

It is a General English course, and we are using Natural English Upper Intermediate as a base for the course. This was
stipulated by the school for reasons of continuity, but there is still flexibility to use other materials when desirable. “We”
includes myself and the other five teachers who are sharing the class. Our roles are all equal, our responsibility is to teach
the class for those 6 hours per week, ensuring a balance of skills and systems between us.

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 Overview of the group of learners (the composition of group)

The stated level of the group is Upper Intermediate. The learners in this group are all adults of between 18 and 40 years
old. There are eight men and seven women. There are a mix of professions, for example: auditor, pharmacist, buyer,
account manager. However, the majority of the students were employed in their professions in their own country but are
currently unemployed or doing menial work in the U.K.

Seven of the students (Xavi, Jose, Javi, Miguel, Ramon, Ted, Gema) are Spanish. Of the remaining eight students, two are
Japanese, two are Italian, two are Iranian, one is Qatari and one is Afghani.

Thus far they have demonstrated high motivation levels and participate well in speaking activities, although of course with a
mixed level of ability. The Qatari (Arabic L1) student is weaker in writing than in speaking, as is often the case, and slower
at it than the others. The Spanish students, of course, tend to struggle with consonant clusters, which causes interfering
sounds in such words and they also struggle with producing weak forms.

Within the stated Upper Intermediate level, there are a mix of sub-levels. Differentiation needs to be taken into
consideration when planning a lesson.

Information about individual learners relevant to the lesson (removed as I don’t want to share personal
information about learners)

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Aims and learning outcomes

Aim: By the end of this lesson, learners will be better able to identify the main ideas in an authentic radio news broadcast
taken from the BBC, in order to summarise a news story with the purpose of retelling it. This will be achieved through use
of a prediction activity to encourage activation of background knowledge, followed by structured guidance through the
summarising process (an elicitation activity supported by a handout).

Evidence: Learners will use key words to predict story content, then listen to check these and use a structured handout
to help them produce a summary of each story.

Subsidiary aim: By the end of this lesson, learners will be better able to summarize what they have heard on the news,
through use of their notes in the structured handout, and express their opinions/feelings regarding the stories.

Evidence: Learners will orally summarise their stories in pairs, completing the transfer of information that is necessitated
by the jigsaw activity. Learners will also respond to a series of questions prompting expression of opinions/feelings
regarding the stories.
AND
A Further discussion of the content is enabled by the “news values” activity, which encourages learners to engage further
with the listening extract./ B. Or learners will produce a short letter to a friend, commenting on the contents of the news
broadcast, prompted by a handout with suggestions of language to use.

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Timetable fit

Learners have recently (+- 2 weeks ago) done some listening activities focussed on decoding processes, based on a radio
news extract and engaged in discussion regarding these. This increased their awareness of weak forms and changes in
sounds that occur in connected speech and gave them practice in using decoding processes to develop the automaticity of
these, thereby freeing up more space for meaning-building processes to be deployed.

This lesson is intended to shift the focus on to these meaning-building processes and provide learners with the opportunity
to engage with news broadcast material in a more meaningful, real-life way. (See rationale).

In subsequent lessons, more work on both decoding and meaning-building processes will be done, using different genres
of listening test, to further automatise these and to expand learners’ knowledge of target language macro-scripts and
schemata. Learners will also engage with recorded dialogues in an interactive way, to work on the listening and response-
forming processes needed to participate successfully in conversation.

Materials and resources.

- a radio news broadcast broken down into two extracts. 2 or 3 stories in each.
- 2 laptops (1 mine, 1 to be borrowed from Jane)
- handout of news values, (taken from: White, G.(1998:91)Oxford Listening, Oxford University Press. Oxford.)
- two sets of keywords corresponding to the two radio news broadcast extracts.
- Handout for skills focus activity (self-made, adapted from Buchanan, H. (2012) Out of the Media, into the Classroom.
46th IATEFL Conference, Glasgow)
- Handout to structure the summarising process (ibid)
- Handout with questions to prompt personal response (taken from Buchanan, H. (2012) Out of the Media, into the
Classroom. 46th IATEFL Conference, Glasgow)
- one evocative newspaper picture + separated headline
- handout to scaffold letter-writing process (alternative activity in case of time issues)
- transcript

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Analysis of target /analysis of sub-skills.

Meaning-building processes to be used in this lesson.

Amplifying what the speaker says

Using external knowledge (In the case of this news broadcast, knowledge of the news broadcast macro-script and
content schemata triggered by key words will be used):
- Learners must apply this knowledge to identifying word meaning: narrowing down the range of possible
words/meanings of words that decoding a word gives rise to. This will also involve attention to co-text. (News broad
macro-script knowledge and keywords - see below - will (once explained if needs be) will trigger lexical sets and
expectations when learners try to guess the content based on the words. This will help them identify word meaning.)
- Learners will make predictions based on key words/phrases from the news broadcast, listening for gist to confirm or
reject these.(Key words: Names and difficult key words e.g. W.T.O.; Antioquia Province; congress; raided;)
Information handling
Selecting information that fulfils the listener’s goals. (The goal in this case is to summarise the news items, completing a
handout to guide the process.)
- Learners must locate main points (in the case of this news broadcast, the who/when/where/what/how of each new
story).
- Learners must decide what information to retain and what information to discard (in the case of this news broadcast,
learners must decide how much of the detail that follows the headlines is necessary to complete the task, which is
guided by the handout.).
- Learners must paraphrase information so that what is important is not lost. Deep processing of meaning will be
necessary for this.(In the case of this news broadcast, learners will make notes in a structured handout. They can not
write fast enough to transcribe, so will be pushed to paraphrase.)
Connecting
Infer the relationship between incoming information and understanding of the text so far.
- Learners must decide whether incoming information is an extension of a current point or the beginning of a new
point. (In the case of this news broadcast, learners need to identify when the newsreader finishes one item and
moves onto the next.)
- Learners must infer the correct order of events: this involves deploying knowledge of the news broadcast macro-
script. (In the case of this news broadcast, learners need to remember that the headline will be followed by a brief
summary and further details may subsequently be sketched in and that a news report will often not follow
chronological order.)

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5c (Analysis of Target Language/Subkills) (Continued)
Key words/phrases for the 6 stories from the radio extract (learners to base their predictions on these)

Story One:
President Obama (/prezɪdənt əʊbɑːmə/) = America’s president
Burma’s president Thein Sein (/Bɜːməz prezɪdənt θeɪn seɪn/) = the name of Burma’s president
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (/ɒpəzɪʃən liːdə ʊŋ sæn suː ʧiː/) = The name of Burma’s opposition leader

Story Two:
China’s president Hu Jintao (ʧaɪniːz prezɪdənt huːʤɪntaʊ) = name of China’s president at time of broadcast
congress (/kɒŋgres/) = a large formal meeting or series of meetings where representatives from different groups discuss
ideas, make decisions, etc
vice president Xi Jiping (/vaɪs prezɪdənt ʃiː ʧɪŋ pɪŋ/) = name of China’s vice president at time of broadcast

Story Three:
The E.U. (/ðiː iːjuː/) = The European Union
Latin American countries (/lætɪn əmerɪkən kʌntriːz/) = countries in Latin America
W.T.O. (/dʊbljuː tiːəʊ/) = World Trade Organisation - deals with the global rules of trade between nations.

Story Four:
Columbian farm workers (kəlɒmbiːən fɑːm wɜːkəz) = Columbian people who work on a farm
Unidentified gun men (/ʌnaɪdentɪfaɪd gʌnmen/) = unknown men with guns
Antioquia province (/æntiːəʊkiːə prɒvɪns/) = a province in Columbia.

Story Five:
McDonalds (/məkdɒnəldz/) = well-known fast food chain
a drop (/ə drɒp/) = a fall or reduction in the amount, level or number of something
world economy (wɜːld ɪkɒnəmiː) = the relationship between production, trade and the supply of money, world-wide.

Story Six:
raided (/reɪdɪd/) = a surprise visit by the police looking for criminals or for illegal goods or drugs
trafficking gold and silver (træfɪkɪŋ gəʊld ən sɪlvə) = illegally moving goods from one country to another
assets (æsɪts) = things of value that a person or a company owns, which can be used or sold to pay debts

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(Analysis of Target Language/Subkills) (Continued)

Vocabulary for “News Values”

1. Negativity(/negətɪvɪtiː/): bad news is rated higher than good news. (negativity=noun: a tendency to consider only the
bad side of something/somebody; a lack of enthusiasm or hope. adj=negative)
2. Freshness(/freʃnɪs/): the best news is something which has only just happened, rather than something that happened
three days ago. (freshness=noun: made or experienced recently. adj=fresh)
3. Proximity(/prɒksɪmɪtiː/): the news item is more highly rated if it happened nearby, in the same town or country as the
audience, rather than a thousand miles away. (proximity=noun: the state of being near somebody/something in distance
or time. adjs: close or near/far or distant)
4. Unexpectedness(/ʌnekspektɪdnɪs/): something which is unexpected, rare or untypical of how we expect a person or a
group to behave is more highly rated. (unexpectedness=noun: the level of surprise caused. Adj: unexpected/surprising
because you didn’t think it would happen)
5. Eliteness(/eliːtnɪs/): the audience likes news which has happened to famous people. (The degree to which something is
elite. (elite: a group of people in a society, etc. who are powerful and have a lot of influence, because they are rich,
intelligent, etc)
6. Superlativeness(sʊpɜːlətɪvnɪs): the audience likes news about the highest building, the most violent crime, the oldest
living person, and so on. (superlativeness=noun: referring to superlatives - biggest, highest etc)
7. Relevance(/reləvənts/): the audience will be more interested in a story which affects them personally. (Relevance:
noun. From the adjective relevant -closely connected with a subject or situation of interest to you.)
8. Competition(/kɒmpətɪʃən/): the radio station will obviously rate a ‘scoop’ story very highly i.e. one that no other station
has got yet. (competition = noun: from the verb “to compete” - trying to be better than somebody else.)

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Assumptions
Assumptions about the learners’ knowledge, abilities and interests relevant to the aims and learning outcomes
of the lesson
- Learners value the opportunity to engage in discussions.
- Learners need listening tasks that will distract them from over-use of decoding processes during listening, when these are
not specifically being worked on.
- Learners have a mixture of listening abilities within their stated level of upper intermediate but collaboratively should be
able to succeed in doing the tasks, which should be motivational and increase their confidence.
- Some learners are not interested in current affairs but there are enough of them who are interested that external
knowledge can be shared through collaboration and those with less interest will therefore not be disadvantaged by this.
- Learners will struggle with recognition of contractions and weak forms in connected speech.
Anticipate and explain potential problems in relation to (a) the lesson’s aims and learning outcomes, (b) the
learners and the learning context, and (c) the equipment, materials and resources to be used

1) I am teaching second so learners may be tired from the first hour./I am teaching first so some learners may arrive late.
2) Computer room may be unavailable (for the jigsaw element) and media players may not work.
3) There was an influx of new class members last week: attendance for next week difficult to predict.
4) Some learners are not interested in current affairs, which means their schema will be less complete than those who
are.
5) Some learners have been in the U.K. for a much shorter time than others so target culture schema and macro-script
knowledge will be less complete.
6) Learners may struggle to understand the names and acronyms (e.g. last time they didn’t realise that /eneɪʧes/ is the
same as NHS) used in the stories.
7) Learners may not be familiar with all the news values vocabulary.
8) Learners may not know what information they need to summarise or how to approach the task.
9) Learners may struggle to identify necessary main points preventing them from completing the summary task.
10) Learners may want to understand every word, despite knowing the best approach for the activity is not compatible
with this.
11) The stages from Pre-listening until Listening 2, including all the discussion, may take longer than anticipated, if there
are too many problems (such as noted here), and leave insufficient time for completion of the remaining activities
planned.

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Appropriate solutions to the problems
1) If learners seem lethargic, swap them around to give them somebody new to talk to and get their blood moving./The
first activity is easy for latecomers to join in with.
2) I will establish availability well in advance. Worst case scenario, they will have to be at opposite ends of the same
room, and listen/discuss more quietly. Everything will be tested well in advance of the lesson to ensure it works.
3) Sufficient materials will be prepared for maximum attendance, groups can vary in size as necessary.
4) The prediction activity will be done in groups, and each group will contain some students who are interested - I am
aware of who is and isn’t etc - so that they can share their external knowledge with the less interested students, in
this way alleviating the disadvantage.
5) Again, group work/discussion will enable knowledge-sharing, which will benefit the more recent arrivals.
6) I have given these as key words, so that prior awareness of them will help learners to recognise them in the speech
stream and not be put off by what may sound like unknown lexical items but are just unknown names/acronyms,
allowing them to focus on the true content words.
7) I have included a vocabulary checking stage to ensure that learners are familiar with the language before use.
8) I have included an elicitation stage to check they know how to approach the task and prepared a handout to
structure their attempt of the task.
9) I have a transcript prepared. If they really can’t complete the task, even having chosen only two stories (See 11
below), I will give them this to supplement their answers, before they have to summarise the stories for the other
group. This means the information gap won’t be affected. Learners can use the transcript to help them see what
words they mis-recognised.
10) I will ask learners to use the advised approach and assure them that at the end of the lesson, they will get a
copy of the transcript and can use it to gain all the new vocabulary rather than trying to listen to every word during
the task, which would impede the task.
11)
- If the jigsaw activity and subsequent discussion finish late, I will put a strict time-limit on the discussion element of the
activity and cut the reporting back stage.
- If I think there still wouldn’t be time to complete everything, learners will instead turn their summary notes on the
worksheet and information from partner, into full sentences to produce a letter to a friend, telling the friend about the
stories the learner has heard and how the learner feels about them.
- In order to try and avoid the need to switch to plan B, if, during monitoring, I see that learners are really struggling
with the jigsaw, I will allow them to choose two out of the three stories to summarise and allow them to see the
transcript to get the information for the third.

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 A commentary, of between 500 and 750 words, which provides a clear rationale for the lesson plan with
reference to learner characteristics and needs and the candidate’s reading and research in their background
essay

The research for my background essay highlighted three major considerations for me:
- listening lessons often resemble testing rather than teaching: this can isolate learners but steps can and should be taken to alleviate this
when testing is not the aim.
- listening tasks need to be suited to text-type and will be more motivating to learners if they require an authentic, real-world response.
- learners often focus too much attention on decoding processes, leaving insufficient processing room for meaning-building processes to
be used efficiently.

My learners’ motivation for learning English comes from the desire to integrate into the target language community in Leeds. They want to
improve their employment situation and to use English socially. Being able to listen for meaning, summarise, discuss and respond to news
stories are real world skills: currents affairs are not an uncommon topic of conversation. Interviewers will often expect job applicants to be
aware of and able to discuss topical items affecting their particular trade at the time of interview. These learners are always keen to have
discussions in class.This lesson should therefore hopefully be motivating for them, as the listening elements are not an end in themselves
but a means to a productive end, making the listening purposeful.

I have chosen to focus on meaning-building processes (see target sub-skills analysis) for this lesson because over a course of lessons it is
important to ensure a balanced approach and recently the learners have had two listening lessons with emphasis on decoding processes.
Though meaning building processes are transferable from L1, it has been demonstrated that this does not always happen due to lack of
automaticity of decoding processes. The sequence of activities I have chosen will encourage the learners to focus on meaning building, and
avoid cognitive overload:

The lead-in should engage learners while the prediction activity allows them both to activate and to share their world-knowledge. This should
help those less interested in current affairs (e.g. Mami, Gema). The activity will also ensure that during the first listening, in checking their
predictions, learners will orientate themselves to the text.

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A commentary, of between 500 and 750 words, which provides a clear rationale for the lesson plan with
reference to learner characteristics and needs and the candidate’s reading and research in their background
essay (continued)

The jigsaw listening element provides an information gap and therefore a solid purpose in listening for meaning. It also allows the use of an
authentic broadcast that will challenge the stronger members of the group (e.g.Xavi), as the listening and tasks are all collaborative, which
means that weaker learners (e.g. Yuko and Ted, who haven’t been in the U.K. for very long), will gain support and confidence through not
working in isolation and will therefore be able to access a more difficult extract. The lesson focuses on the process of building meaning, with
no expectation of or emphasis on correct answers drawn from first time of hearing. Learners who are inclined to switch off/tune out when
they do not succeed immediately (e.g. Gema) or experience frustration at this lack of success (e.g. Ramon) will hopefully find this approach
more motivating.

The learners will control the media players and collaborate in order to complete the task. However, in order to avoid over-focussing on every
word and over-playing of the extract, learners will have a summary worksheet to complete and a time-limit to achieve this within.
Furthermore, the elicitation activity preceding the main listening task ensures learners are aware of the importance of focussing on main
ideas rather than individual words. This jigsaw approach has the added benefit of ensuring that learners do not have to cope with the full
text immediately, as well as building in plenty of opportunity for discussion of content. This means that when the full text is played, cognitive
overload will be much less of an issue.

The news values discussion element of the lesson will engage the learners with the listening text at discourse level, as they will interrogate
the reasons behind the ordering of news stories, thereby gaining greater insight into the relationship between text and audience. The
alternative writing activity, to be used if time is tight, gives learners a purpose for written production based on the whole text, which they will
have the opportunity to hear in its entirety before starting to write.

Finally, the little review slot that brings the lesson to a close is a student-centred way of summarising what has been achieved in the class. In
order to ask and answer questions, learners will have to think back over what they have learnt and through doing this should feel a sense of
achievement.

(749 words)

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Procedure
Stage Stage Aim Time Interaction Teacher Procedure and Learner Activity

Lead-in Engage learners, create 5 min T-ss, ss-ss, Ss are told that they will see a newspaper picture for 3 seconds and
a positive learning ss-T they must look hard to try and notice as much as possible in order
atmosphere. Activate to make a headline to with it.
news story schemata. Ss are shown the picture.
Ss discuss in groups what they saw.
Ss are shown the picture again, this time for 5 seconds.
Ss discuss again, with the added information from the second
viewing. Ss create a headline for the picture.
Each group shares their headline with the whole class.
Ss shown the picture with the accompanying headline.
T asks ss which headline they think is best between all the
headlines, real and created.
Pre-listening 1: Prediction activity to 5 ss-ss T briefly explains the aims of the lesson (already written on the
Prediction increase motivation for mins whiteboard)
listening to the text Ss to be put into two groups. (Each group will work with different
extracts from the same news broadcast.)
Each group to be given a few key words from their broadcasts.
Group to decide which keywords go together and what the news
stories could be about.

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 Stage Stage Aim Time Interaction Teacher Procedure and Learner Activity

Pre-listening 2: Elicitation activity to 5-10 ss-ss, ss-T Ss receive handout with questions to prompt discussion of the most
Listening skills focus learners’ attention mins effective approach to the main task. (fluency)
focus on sub-skills needed for Feedback: Each group to choose a spokesperson to briefly sum up
Listening 1. their answers to the questions. (accuracy)
T to ensure the outcome of this awareness-raising activity is the
most effective approach, through guiding the discussion.

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 Stage Stage Aim Time Interaction Teacher Procedure and Learner Activity

Listening 1 Listening for gist to 15-20 ss-ss Each group of learners to be given a laptop. All learners to be given
check predictions (to min a worksheet to scaffold the summarizing process.
help learners orientate One group to move into the computer room once activity set up.
themselves to the text) Ss listen to their news stories and check their predictions.

Listening 2 Listening for meaning to ss-ss Ss to listen/replay the bits they want to replay etc and, between
create summary: using a them, extract enough information to complete the handout and thus
handout to structure the summarise the news story. (Who/what/when/where/how/why)
process. (Information
gap to create motivation
to listen for meaning.)

Personal response to s-s Ss to regroup in the main classroom.

content. Ss to be paired up, each pair to have one person from each group.
(fluency) Pairs to give each other a summary of the news stories.
Pairs to discuss their opinions and feelings about the news stories
(prompted by a handout: brief set of questions)

Report back ss-T Each pair to share one of their summaries and their feelings about
(accuracy) the same story with the whole class. Focus on accuracy of
summarizing language.

**If timing is fine at this point: Proceed to Discussion 1. If timing is

tighter than optimal, skip to Writing 1.**

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 Stage Stage Aim Time Interaction
Discussion 1 Deeper engagement with 15
(Choice A) the complete min
extract.(Learners to
engage with the
complete set of news
items from the jigsaw
activity, which they have
just constructed between
them.)
Ensure all learners
understand the
vocabulary necessary for
to complete the task.
Increase awareness of
the genre through
exploration of the
process of ordering news
stories in broadcast
media.
Listening 3 Listening for meaning to 5 min ss-ss
the complete extract.
Responding to the
structure of the
broadcast.
Teacher Procedure and Learner Activity
ss-ss Ss to imagine that they are in charge of BBC World Service. Who is
the intended audience? (T to supply this information in a handout)
How do you choose what order to put the news items into? Ss to
discuss in pairs for a minute.
Each pair to volunteer a suggestion.
T to hand out list of “news values”.
ss-ss Vocabulary check: Ss in groups to look through the handout and
check that their whole group understands it all through discussion.
Each group to take it in turns to ask the whole class their difficult
words. Teacher to fill in any gaps.
ss-ss Ss to use those values and their own ideas to decide on the best
order, in their opinion, for the news stories.
Ss to be grouped with one person from each pair in each group.
Groups to renegotiate the order. (fluency)
Feedback: Each group to elect a spokesperson to tell the rest of
the class their group’s chosen order and the reasons behind it.
(accuracy)
T to play the whole extract through
Ss to listen for the order of the items and compare it to their order.
Ss to discuss in their groups: - why they think the radio programme
chose that order, the differences between their order and the
programme order and which they think is better.
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 Stage Stage Aim
Review Conclude the lesson,
check learning
B. Listening Deeper engagement with 15 s-s
3/Writing 1 content of the complete mins
extract: contextualised
productive activity using
the content.
(Learners to engage with
the complete set of news
items from the jigsaw
activity, which they have
just constructed between
them.)
The bad weather has triggered "acqua alta" (high water) and 70% of the city has been flooded.
Time Interaction Teacher Procedure and Learner Activity
2-5 T-ss, ss-T Ss to be put in teams
min Teams to take it in turns to ask the other team a question about the
lesson content - (news values vocab), content of the news stories
etc
Ss to listen to complete recording of the broadcast and listen for the
stories that their partners have already told them. Learners to note
the order of the stories.
Ss to write a short letter to a friend, telling the friend about the
stories that have been heard on the news and the feelings these
evoked in the learner. Ss to be given a handout with prompts for
language use in the email. T to elicit appropriate style (i.e. informal)
from ss.
Ss to read each others’ work and peer mark it, using guidelines
provided by another handout.
*At this point, proceed to “Review” stage to complete the lesson.
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