ACE Lesson 08






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Teacher:		Level:	ACE – Low Beginner
Skill:	Listening and speaking	Date:	May 29, 2006
Subskills:		Topic:	Family and relationships
Objective:	SWABAT: Identify family members in English. Draw a family tree based on auditory information. Answer tourists’ questions about their family in English.	Lexis:	Mother, father, wife, husband, married, family tree, daughter, son, children, sister, brother
Language point(s):	“How many people are in your family?” “Are you married?” “How many children (sons, daughters) do you have?” “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”	Anticipated problems:

STAGE	E \| S \| A	TARGET LANGUAGE	TEACHER	STUDENT	MATERIALS	TIME
1	E	Theme language	Places Family flashcards in front of class. Elicits key lexis.	Responds	Family flashcards: Married couple and family	5 min
2	E	Theme language	Creates a family tree [1] as key lexis is elicited.	Responds	Whiteboard	5 min
3	E	Theme language	Chooses a female volunteer. Gets down on knees and proposes. Points to self: “Husband.” Points to female, elicits wife.	Responds	None	2 min
4	E	Theme language	Uses children flashcards to elicit “son,” “daughter,” “child,” … etc.	Responds	Children flashcards	5 min
5	S	Theme Language	Pairs Ss. Hands out paper task 1. Ss complete page 1 alone or in pairs.	Completes task	Paper task 1	5 min
6	E/S	Theme language	Listening and Speaking: Sets the scene using family flashcard. Speaks dialog [2], then drills until Ss can say it when teacher points to speaker.	Listens, repeats.	Dialog flashcard	5 min
7	S	Theme language	Pairs Ss. Have them complete paper task 1 (page 2).	Completes task	Paper task 1	5 min
8	E/S	Theme language	Listening and Speaking: Sets the scene using dialog flashcard. Speaks each piece of dialog [3]; Ss listen, then repeat. Once drilled, model each piece with the corresponding family tree on the whiteboard.	Responds	Dialog flashcard, whiteboard	10 min
9	S/A	Theme language	Listening: Reads dialog [4]. Repeats as many times as necessary. Ss draw corresponding family tree.	Draws family tree.	Paper, pens	10 min
10	S/A	Theme language	Gives each Ss a piece of tape and has them tape their family trees to the window. Teacher then reads dialog [4] again and draws the family tree on the whiteboard.	Compares their family tree to the correct answer.	Tape, whiteboard	5 min
11	S/A	Theme language	Hands out paper task 2 (page 3 of PT1). Ss answer each question alone, and then draws their own family tree.	Answers questions, draws family tree	PT2 (PT1 page 3)	10 min
12	A	Theme language	Ss take turns coming to the front of the room. Ss1 asks the questions form dialog [3] and the other replies. Then they switch. Teacher corrects for errors after Ss have finished.	Responds.	PT2, chairs	20 min

NOTES:

Pre-Lesson:
[1]

[2]
A: Who’s he?
B: He’s my father, son, brother
A: Who’s she?
B: She’s my mother, daughter, sister

[3]
A: Are you married?
B: Yes.
A: How many children do you have?
B: I have two children, one daughter and one son.
A: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
B: I have one brother and two sisters.

[4]
I am married.
I have four children.
I have two daughters and two sons.
I have one brothers and one sister.

Post-Lesson:

Overall a decent lesson. I was literally running on one hour of sleep when I taught it (and I still am), which surely choked its potential. Teacher wasn’t as effective as possible at monitoring and correction; bad craic as the emphasis of this lesson was pronunciation and conversation.

Eliciting was successful and creative. Proposing to female Ss got some laughs and highlighted differences between father/mother and husband/wife.

For correction of PT1 page 1 I drew the family tree and had Ss come to the board and fill in missing words. Many Ss knew the lexis but pronunciation and language was a struggle for most of them.

Some of the dialog wasn’t reinforced enough. Some necessary dialog for the final activation wasn’t pre-taught effectively (i.e., I have no children, I have no daughters, etc.) but was elicited and Ss grasped it (lesson plan was altered in section B and all responses were properly modeled and drilled in stage 8).

Activation was lame; changed it in section B so that each Ss drew a family tree and answered the questions in PT2. Somewhat less lame, but the drawing was time-consuming and Ss relied too much on their notes instead of natural speaking.

ELLP Report:

This lesson is not applicable—there is no chapter on family in the ELLP manual.

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