Methodology 7, 2005

Lesson Planning and Timetabling

By the end of this lecture you should: have a good idea of what needs to be included in a lesson plan and how to go about writing one have some idea of the basic considerations involved in timetabling i.e. planning a sequence of lessons

Introduction to Lesson Planning

Most teachers have some idea, in advance, of any lesson they are about to teach i.e. they have an idea of what theyll try to cover and how. However, fewer teachers prepare their lessons in detail. Lesson-planning is both an important and useful skill and for the purposes of an undergraduate methodology course it is essential. From now on you will be encouraged both to look at and write a wide range of lesson-plans, and even though you may subsequently choose to plan your lessons more skeletally, the awareness of and exposure to thorough and disciplined planning that you will derive from this lecture will provide an insight which thereafter will make lesson-planning much easier and much more effective. Lesson-planning and timetabling are sometimes seen as something of a chore, but in fact the advantages of planning are enormous, both for students and teachers. 1. planning means anticipation, coherence, balance and clarity of purpose. 2. planning makes execution easier. 3. planning saves time in the long run. 4. planning allows for flexibility in execution. 5. planning forces you to see the wood for the trees. 6. planning looks professional, especially to your students. 7. planning makes self-appraisal much easier. Clearly, a coherent, well-targeted and well-shaped lesson will be appreciated by students. Equally, a timetable which hangs together and promotes a sense of direction and
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progress will be appreciated by students. Notwithstanding the intrinsic advantages of planning skills for teachers, there are further advantages in the presentation of your plans for anybody observing your teaching, or reading about your lessons and timetables. 1. lesson plans help your observer or reader see how you went about preparing for your lesson and the factors you took into consideration. 2. lesson plans make the task of commenting upon lessons much easier - they help to explain why you are doing something at a particular point in a lesson, and to locate and identify any problems. 3. the lesson plan is something concrete that can be referred to either in feedback with your observer or by your reader, and serves to reflect many of the important features of the lesson, e.g. the perception of main and subsidiary aims the degree of language awareness exhibited the ability to anticipate problems the aims of each stage of the lesson the balance of activities in the lesson whether or not whole stages of the lesson are missing the allocation of time to particular stages and their perceived importance in the lesson as a whole We therefore need to look at writing lesson plans and consider what they should contain.

The Content of Lesson Plans

A lesson plan should normally contain preliminary information under the following headings: 1. Timetable fit 2. Level 3. Time 4. Class profile 5. Aims:
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- main aims
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- subsidiary aims 6. Assumed knowledge 7. Anticipated problems 8. Materials and aids This preliminary information sheet is usually about 1 or 2 pages.

A. Preliminary Information
1. Timetable fit - this shows how your lesson relates to other lessons that have gone before and those that will follow, i.e. it fits into a sequence of lessons you have timetabled and is not a one off. State if you are using a coursebook with the class, the work you have covered which is relevant to the lesson, and give some indication of how the lesson ,will be consolidated in future lessons. Be brief. 2. Level: Elementary, Late/Upper Intermediate, Advanced, etc. (not level 1, 2 ,3, etc. as this will not be universally understood). 3. Time: length of lesson. 4. Class profile: make some brief general comments about the class as a whole (atmosphere, etc) and any points about individual students if you feel they may be relevant to the lesson (age, particular strengths or weaknesses, etc). This information is particularly useful if your reader has not seen your lesson, so include it on the lesson plans. You should definitely include this heading on the lesson plan for your practical exam and you also could chat about the class with your tutor before the lesson. 5. Aims: this is probably the most important part of your lesson plan since your lesson will ultimately be judged in terms of your aims. It is therefore essential that they are clearly and unambiguously specified and that you give realistic and achievable aims. If you are unsure about the aims of your lesson, use this maxim: What is it that students should be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldnt do at the beginning? Firstly, deal with aims under two headings: main and subsidiary; in a lesson of 50 minutes you will normally have 2 or 3 main aims. These aims should encapsulate what the lesson is basically about, what its major objectives are. The aims may be primarily language-oriented (e.g. introduction and controlled oral practice of grammatical structure X) or they may be primarily skill-oriented (e.g. to increase students confidence and ability to listen for gist). Subsidiary aims will be those that can be dovetailed
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coherently into the body and shape of the lesson. So for an example of the expression of aims, we might have: Main aim: Remedial introduction and controlled practice of language related to illnesses, i.e. (i) have got (ii) lexis of illness and pain. Subsidiary aims: a) to practise dictionary-using skills b) to practise selective listening (i.e. tape of doctor recalling memorable patients) c) to practise natural pronunciation from phonemic script, especially soundlinking. Two things to note here are: (i) where a language item may have several meanings (e.g. have got) its particular target meaning for the lesson is specified. (ii) the lesson has limited aims and the teacher is not trying to achieve too much. Note that it is also useful to list the lexical items that will be dealt with. Avoid expressing aims such as to teach the present perfect. This is an unachievable aim in a 50 minute lesson and the term teach is best not used. It is better, for example, to say your aim is to introduce and give controlled practice in the experience use of the present perfect. Try to give aims that are learner-centred, e.g. to enable students to use the present perfect with a greater degree of accuracy. Similarly, to do a listening exercise is a poorly expressed aim - you need to state which aspect of the listening skill is being developed. Remember to distinguish between what are teaching aims and learning aims. You may well have aims for yourself in the lesson (e.g. I want to improve the clarity of my instructions) but these should be expressed in a separate section. It is also important not to confuse aims with activities. You cannot say your aim is to do a role play since this is an activity, not an aim. You would need to specify what our aim for the activity is, e.g. it could be to consolidate vocabulary related to previous work in class or to recycle functional exponents for making polite requests, or to develop fluency in the functional areas X, Y and Z etc. 6. Assumed knowledge: specify briefly what language you assume students will already know (vocabulary, structure, etc) without which you could not easily teach what it is you are aiming to. If you intend to do some kind of skills work, state the level of
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ability students have with reading, listening, etc. 7. Anticipated problems: these should be the specific things students might have problems with. They must be relevant to the aims of your lesson. This is an important part of your lesson plan since it gives some idea of your ability to analyse language. Analyse anticipated problems under the following headings on your lesson plan: a) Meaning b) Form c) Phonology d) Level of skill e) Socio-cultural problems If you are dealing with skills in part of your lesson, for instance, then you might anticipate the following problems: i) ii) present level of students ability in coping with extensive reading/listening tasks degree of familiarity with vocabulary in text, length and difficulty of text for students, time taken by slow readers, etc. On occasion you may need to add a fifth heading Socio-cultural problems - if you are dealing with something alien to a particular culture in your lesson, e.g. reading comics may be unfamiliar to some students and you would therefore need to anticipate this if you wanted to use them as part of a reading lesson. 8. Materials/Aids: list any coursebook references, tapes, pictures, board drawings, board diagrams, handouts, realia, etc. you intend to use. State also if the material is your own.

B. Procedure
Firstly, if we consider what needs to be included under this heading, the answer is that it depends on who is going to see the lesson plan. The main criteria for the Procedure, besides being clear and logical, is that it should make the lesson reconstructable. In other words (a) dont write a play-written, word-for-word script, and
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(b) dont write it in such brief note form that only you understand it; give just enough information so that someone else could reconstruct/teach your lesson from the lesson plan. When teaching the lesson, you may wish to have a simpler working document for yourself which shows major stages, concept questions, etc. with boxes, arrows, stars, or coloured pens. Some people even like to use a series of small coloured cards that carry instructions and contain the main points of a particular stage so that they can be easily referred to during the lesson. The layout style you adopt for the Procedure part of the lesson plan is a question of individual taste and you should choose your own, but some important considerations are: 1. Give a heading to each stage: This will help you to plan logically staged lessons and make it clear for your observer/reader how the stages of the lesson develop, e.g. presenting new language getting across meaning highlighting form and pronunciation controlled practice less controlled practice freer practice/personalization/creative stage

This helps to ensure that important stages of the lesson are not missed out and that appropriate materials are prepared for the practice stages. 2. Indicate the number of each stage and sub-stage : Being able to refer to stages numerically makes life much easier both for you and your observer or reader. The following system works well: 1. a) b) c) 2. a) b) c) etc.

3. State the aims of each stage of the lesson: State the aim of each stage of the lesson so it is clear to yourself and your observer/reader why you are doing something at a particular point in your lesson. This also helps your observer to assess the effectiveness of this part of the lesson, rather than have to spend time wondering precisely what your aim is. It should also help to clarify the distinction between aims and activities. Your task
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then is to include sufficient detail in your Procedure section to show how you will achieve the aims of each stage. 4. Show the type of interaction: Show the type of interaction for each stage and activity, e.g. T - S, S - S, in groups, etc. This will help you to assess if there is sufficient variety of focus in the lesson. 5. Give approximate timing: Show the amount of time you expect to spend on each stage/activity in the lesson. Be realistic about this. A lot will depend on your experience and judgement, and sometimes the timing can go wrong, but dont be afraid of being flexible in the lesson (see 4 below). The time you give to particular stages/activities is often a reflection of what you perceive to be important in the lesson, so you will need to make appropriate decisions about timing. Remember to allow for thinking time dont rush pupils - and keep in mind that pupils concentration span on anyone activity is only about 20-30 minutes, so it is probably not a good idea to do listening for 40 minutes. Giving an approximate timing can also help you to limit your aims e.g. by adding up the time you have given to all the stages you can see if there is sufficient time to cover them in the lesson - and it can help you to learn from experience how long some kinds of activities can take. If you have timing problems with lessons, this may be due to several causes: poor perception of aims confusion over what are Main Aims and Subsidiary Aims unanticipated problems due to insufficient language analysis different learning rates among students degree of student unfamiliarity with concept poor language grading/instructions slow pace of the lesson, etc.

One possible solution to timing problems is to build flexible slots into the lesson plan which can be used or dropped as necessary, e.g. if time/if no problems here, then move to stage 7. A point worth adding here is that if you do not do what you might be normally expected to do in the lesson then state your reason on the lesson plan (e.g. why you will
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not be having a correction stage after the roleplay). 6. Show evidence of language analysis a) Meaning: show how you will convey meaning and check understanding. Write concept questions on your lesson plan with the answers you expect. Remember that you may need to ask questions about style, connotation, etc. If you use time lines, show these on the lesson plan too. All this demonstrates you have analysed the language you are teaching. b) Form: show the form clearly, e.g. He must have been drunk must + past infinitive c) Phonology: where you anticipate pronunciation problems, show awareness of sounds, stress and intonation. Write your MS (Model Sentence) on the lesson plan, give the phonemic transcription under problematic segments, and mark stress and intonation patterns. This should remind you to highlight weak forms and check where the stress goes, etc. When teaching vocabulary mark word stress on lexical items. 7. Instructions: Include brief but clear instructions, e.g. for setting up pairwork, groupwork, the use of worksheets, etc. 8. Board work: Plan this before the lesson so that it is clearly organised and legible, and show on your lesson plan how you will make use of the whiteboard during the lesson board work should include titles, rules of form, diagrams, example sentences to contextualise the meaning of difficult vocabulary, phonological features, i.e. anything that students write down as a record of the lesson. Remember to go round and check pupils are copying down accurately. Alternatively, a well designed handout (e.g. a grammar reference handout) can be given to save time in the lesson. Board work can also be prepared before the lesson on OHP transparencies. 9. Skills work a) orientation - show how you will prepare and interest students for these activities, e.g. questions designed to elicit contributions. b) comprehension questions - include pre-set questions for reading/listening tasks and their expected answers. Also indicate the approximate number of times you will play
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the tape. 10. Homework: Include details of a suitable homework task designed to consolidate what has been covered in the lesson and to check if learning has taken place. To sum up: clearly specified aims evidence of sharp language analysis logical staging of the lesson clear and easy to read procedure

C. Thinking it through
Having done all the above, spend some time at the pre-lesson stage considering: is there sufficient variety of activity, focus, pace, intensity, interaction? can pupils be more involved at each stage? what is the nature of the pupil contribution at each stage? i.e. what are pupils required to do? how do you perceive your role at each stage? e.g. corrector? monitor? resource? chairperson?

Layout of Lesson Plans

The layout you choose is completely up to you. Your layout can be linear or tabular. Linear plans are probably the most familiar type, written as any normal text would be, with headings and sub-headings. An example of the tabular plan follows:
AIMS TIME INTERACTION AIDS TEACHER ACTIVITY STUDENT ACTIVITY

The advantage of the tabular layout is that you have to think about what you need to put in each of the columns for each stage of the lesson. It is also easy to see if the lesson looks too teacher-centred (i.e. there is nothing in the Student Activity column!) However, some observers/readers say they find this layout difficult to follow. The following compromise layout has been found to work quite well:
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Stage
Warmer 5 min. S-S

Procedure
Get students to move around classroom looking at one anothers clothes. Teacher then tells pupils to stand in pairs back to back and describe what partner is wearing.

Aim
To get pupils talking and to revise clothes vocabulary

There are several advantages to this layout. Because the name of the stage, the time and type of interaction all fit neatly into the Stage column, plenty of space is left for detail in the Procedure column. Also, there is space in the Aim column to indicate the aim of particular stages and activities in the lesson. The lesson plan is also easy to follow for your tutor or reader.

Teachers Relationship to the Lesson Plan

Having produced your lesson plan it is now worth considering your relationship to it. You obviously will not want to follow it slavishly, neither will you want to diverge from it so much that you fail to achieve any of your stated main aims. Having designed the lesson and taken into account the anticipated problems, the approximate timing, etc., the key word is flexibility. You should fee free to diverge from your lesson plan to deal with any unanticipated learning difficulties that directly relate to your main aims. This shows a willingness to respond to the classroom situation as it develops, and you will be given all credit for doing this. It is not a good idea to plough on with your lesson plan, regardless of the fact that students have not understood the concept or do not know what to do in pairs. You cannot achieve your aims if this is the case, so do not be afraid to go back and clarify, reintroduce, or check concept again, or stop the class and repeat your instructions. After all, having prepared the lesson, your skill as a teacher now is to execute the lesson, and this involves you in making a whole series of decisions as the lesson progresses. You need to show sensitivity to learners and their difficulties, and an ability to respond appropriately. The same advice goes for the teaching practice. Do not be afraid to be flexible, show confidence and independence, and if you do not follow your lesson plan then explain afterwards why you decided to diverge from it.

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Timetabling Introduction
Having looked at lesson planning, which is primarily concerned with individual lessons, let us now look at timetabling, which involves planning and sequencing a whole series of lessons. Consider the following questions: 1. Why timetable? 2. How far ahead do you plan in terms of lesson hours? 3. How do you go about organising your teaching timetable? 4. What do you need to include in your timetable? 5. What factors do you need to consider when timetabling? 6. What are some of the problems and solutions? 7. How do you see the role of the coursebook in timetabling?

Timetabling in Practice
Here are some practical guidelines for timetabling: 1. Analyse one units contents of a coursebook in use, and fill in the Unit Analysis Sheet on the next page. If you dont find this sheet useful, devise an alternative. 2. Review and jot down separately a) links with previous units work b) your perceptions of pupils needs: i) target language needs ii) remedial pupils requests/recycling iii) skills 3. Take a look at the next unit. 4. Using the information from 1 and 2 decide: a) what to teach, omit, add b) which material is useable or exploitable for input and practice, skills and freer practice, warmers and homework, etc. c) where you need to supplement with other material.
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5. Fill in immovable slots that may be given to you by the schools administration (e.g. self-access/tests). 6. Allocate: a) input and skills c) homework specific vocabulary slots? pronunciation slots? recycling as much/as often as possible? introducing new language receptively for later activation? grammar preparation homework? overflow/to be decided slots? (NB balance within and between lessons) (NB balance and variety) b) relevant bits of coursebook ' 7. Review and make changes. Questions to think about:

Useful reading Harmer J The Practice of English Language Teaching (Longman) pp 256-275.
UNIT ANALYSIS SHEET

BOOK STRUCTURES FUNCTIONS VOCABULARY AREAS SPEAKING ACTIVITIES (controlled and freer) LISTENING ACTIVITIES: (authentic or not?) READING ACTIVITIES (authentic or not?) WRITING ACTIVITIES (for consolidation or as a skill?)
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COMMENTS:

Useful? Relevant? Overloaded? Need to supplement?

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PRONUNCIATION, INTONATION AND STRESS WORK: REVISION ACTIVITIES: HOMEWORK:

Lesson Preparation Worksheet

STRUCTURE / FUNCTION / VOCABULARY: ANALYSIS MEANING: FORM: PHONOLOGY: TYPICAL CONTEXT: PROBLEMS ANTICIPATED

CHECKING MEANING:

(concept questions, time lines, etc. where appropriate)

PLANNING

Useful situation, text, listening for presentation:

Useful ideas, aids, prompts for controlled practice:

Further practice ideas:

Area (s) for personalization:

Related freer practice:

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Planning Skills Lessons 1. Timetable Fit

Systematic approaches to skills development Rivers scheme applied If you believe in a systematic approach to skills development, then the timetable should also take this into account. So, alongside questions like text type and listening/reading style considerations, you will need to think about specific skills in relation to each other. Here is a listening timetable based on True to Life Intermediate.
Style/ Register Page 7 12 14 21 23 30 35 37 Topic Reminiscences Study skills Learning skills Games Words Magazines Family relationships Family relationships Text type Interactional narrative Transactional interview Transactional interview Interactional narrative Transactional word game Scripted talk Scripted talk Interactional interview Aim past tenses predictive 'will' consultative unmarked consultative unmarked formal unmarked consultative unmarked casual unmarked formal unmarked formal unmarked Listening style non-interactive submissive non-interactive assertive noninteractive assertive non-interactive submissive non-interactive submissive then interactive non-interactive assertive non-interactive assertive non-interactive submissive

verb + ing paraphrasing words and phrases present perfect/simple past possessive forms prepositions wh- questions

in casual unmarked

Looking at the tasks proposed in True to Life Intermediate, Units 1-5, they all, save one, fit into Wilga Rivers third stage of listening training: Identification and guided selection with short-term retention, since the instructions to students all give prior guidance of what to listen for and require, students to demonstrate immediate comprehension in some way. So you could treat this timetable as, apart from everything else, part of a listening training programme centred on identification and guided selection. Systematic approaches to skills development - using Browns list You could, alternatively, use a more bottom-up inspired, step-by-step approach
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to training students to listen. Imagine, for example, that the class you were using True to Life Intermediate with, had very poor listening skills: they might, for example, have had instruction in elementary and pre-intermediate grammar, vocabulary and reading without ever having had the chance to listen to anything but example sentences, a not uncommon occurrence, unfortunately. In this case, you might want to timetable in a step-by-step skills development plan as follows:
Page 7 12 14 21 23 Topic Reminiscenc es Study skills Learning skills Games Words Text type Interactional narrative Transactional interview Transactional interview Interactional narrative Transactional word game verb ing Aim past tenses predictive will Style/ register consultative unmarked consultative unmarked formal unmarked + consultative unmarked casual unmarked Listening style noninteractive submissive noninteractive assertive noninteractive assertive noninteractive submissive noninteractive submissive then interactive noninteractive assertive noninteractive assertive noninteractive submissive Skills development Recognition of e.g. /k/ and /g/ Recognition of /ail:/ = Ill as opposed to Recognition of as opposed to Identify and recognise stressed words Identify and recognise stressed words Identify and recognise stressed words Recognise . and . Recognise 'him' and 'them'

Paraphras ing words and phrases present perfect/ simple past possessiv e forms prepositio ns in wh questions

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Magazines

Scripted talk

formal unmarked formal unmarked casual unmarked

35 37

Family relationships Family relationships

Scripted talk Interactional interview

Systematic approaches to skills development - a top-down application You might want to be systematic from a top-down point of view: it may be that your students need specific guidance and training in how to summon an appropriate schema. This is likely to be the case at low levels, of course, or at higher levels where students have not been exposed to a range of text types and therefore imagine that, say, an instruction manual is going to work like a novel. You may also decide that students need specific instruction on how to approach
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the meaning of unfamiliar language by looking at the whole context. The timetable, still based on the True to Life units, might then look like this:
Page 7 Topic Reminisc ences Study skills Games Words Text type Interactional narrative Transactional interview Interactional narrative Transactional word game Scripted talk Aim past tenses Style/ register consultativ e unmarked consultativ e unmarked consultativ e unmarked casual unmarked formal unmarked Listening style non-interactive submissive noninteractive assertive noninteractive submissive noninteractive submissive then interactive noninteractive assertive Skills development Using contextual and internal cues to infer the meaning of words Ditto Noticing and understanding discourse markers Ditto

12 21 23

predictive will verb + ing paraphrasing words and phrases possessive forms

35

Family relationsh ips

Summoning correct schema: eliciting distance and proximity

expressions

Completing the timetable fit section of the lesson plan The following are statements of Timetable Fit based on the three versions of a systematic approach to listening skills: 1. The Wilga Rivers approach applied to True to Life Intermediate Unit X page 23.
Students have had quite a lot of exposure to interview and narrative listening and so I want to provide a change - the word game will be more light hearted and can lead naturally into a class version of the same thing, so providing some much needed interactive listening. They have also been mostly exposed to consultative styles of speaking, so this will represent a useful balance, dealing as it does in a more casual style. At the same time, I have been concentrating on helping students through the identification and guided selection phase of their listening skill development and have decided that they still need a lot more practice in this before going on to more unguided work.

2 The 'bottom-up (Gillian Brown) approach applied to True to Life Int. Unit X p. 14.
I have decided to give them a further 'transactional interview' type of listening since they had quite a bit of difficulty with the one on page 12 and because the content is so useful. Also, the style of this listening is less formal than the previous piece so it could be useful
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to look at in terms of making language comparisons. However, the students in this class have got residual problems in coping with listening on the level of individual sounds and so I will be doing some more on sound recognition, helping them get the difference between and .

3 The top-down approach, applied to True to Life Intermediate Unit X page12.

Im gradually building up a range of different text types and listening styles, so have gone for the interview in the book as it is sufficiently different from the narrative in Unit X, and the assertive approach to listening will be quite a change from the submissive listening. I discovered that, although the students ability to decode what they hear into written words is quite good, they tend to get stuck when it comes to sorting out the meaning of less familiar items. So I have decided to do some more work on using contextual clues to help work out meaning.

Creating the conditions and letting it happen If you are of the opinion that skills training is not a good idea and that students learn to read by reading and learn to listen by listening, then the job of fitting items into a timetable is, naturally, much easier. Nevertheless, it is a good idea still to plan for a wide variety of text types (according to the needs and interests of the learners, of course) and for variety in text style and listening and reading style.

2. Aims
Non-specific aims and saying what you really mean Aims include either language development, or skills improvement. To recap the area, look at the list below. The left hand column contains aims which have all been written by experienced teachers, but which, on closer scrutiny, may not actually add up to much, as the comments in the middle column should show. The third column is not just the result of speculation: it comes from having observed lessons with aims like those in column one and seeing what actually happened.
AIMS To develop the listening skill COMMENTS Very vague. The particular skills are not specified The lesson itself may turn out not to be developmental at all - more of a test of listening skills. PROBABLE ACTUAL AIM The piece of listening is probably really (and only) a vehicle for something else - a vocabulary presentation, perhaps, or a lead-in to a discussion.

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To practise the skill of listening for detailed information.

To practise gist listening.

Students practise this skill in practically every lesson: they are usually required to listen to their teacher for information which, in the case of instructions, for example, is pretty detailed. The aim should make clear what is different e.g. - listening to recorded message information. The Late Intermediate class the lesson is directed towards are already expert at listening for gist and do not require any further practice.

The tasks set are probably to test students' recognition of particular vocabulary items, which provides the real aim of the lesson. The set 'gist-listening' task probably serves to acquaint students with the taped piece before moving on to exploiting it for something else. The teacher is probably going to do some 'skimming' activities first, and then move on to more intensive reading for understanding, possibly with the aim of highlighting some grammar. There may be an initial task aimed at helping learners increase their confidence when faced with a long text.

To practise reading As opposed to practising reading for not for understanding., understanding! Some would say that the definition of reading is understanding. Yet again, the aim does not say enough about what will really take place for the students. To practise skim The assumptions behind this sort of aim are reading a long text. crucial. If the teacher has noticed that learners have particular difficulty in skimreading and has presented ways of doing it effectively, then this lesson aim is fine. The text itself may not, however, be one that we would normally read so assertively. To practise scanning The text is a light-hearted magazine article, for specific intended to be read for pleasure. It does not information inform the reader of anything in particular.

Again, what the teacher is probably aiming to do is focus learners attention on some linguistic information.

Making aims more specific and honest We looked at how lesson aims for reading and listening lessons can be shaped according to language input or practice, or skills training. Also, we looked at ways of specifying aims by referring to text type, style and register, listening and reading style. The following headings can help you specify aims for a reading or listening lesson: Text type, style and register Reading or listening style Specific language aim Specific skills aim

Here are some example lesson aims: Text type, style and register

To provide practice in reading popular magazine articles in informal style. To present a learned journal text (formal style, marked register - engineering) To provide practice in listening to loudspeaker announcements
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To provide practice in listening to formal speeches Reading or listening style

To test students submissive reading abilities To provide practice in assertive listening Specific language aim

To provide receptive practice of contrastive discourse linkers - e.g. however, although, though To present comment segments introduced by which (I got there nice and early, which is why I had to wait so long etc.) Specific skills aim

To help students to use their extensive background knowledge to make correct inferences To present a way of dealing with unfamiliar words by breaking them down into parts It is perfectly likely, and very often desirable, to kill two or more birds with one

stone and set aims thus:

To provide practice in submissive reading of popular magazines in informal style and in particular to help learners to use background knowledge to make correct inferences. To present contrastive discourse linkers - however, although, though Or, if you prefer to state your aims in a more learner-centred way:

By the end of the lesson the students will have increased their awareness and understanding of how language is used in popular magazines and their ability to make correct inferences using background knowledge. They will also have consolidated their understanding of the function of contrastive discourse linkers (e.g. however, although, though) and of their place in the sentence.

Assumptions and Anticipated Problems

Assumptions Thinking about your learners is as crucial with reading and listening lessons as it
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is when planning grammar or vocabulary input lessons. As we have seen with the list of unspecific aims, it is no good aiming to provide practice in reading or listening for gist if your students are perfectly practised in the skill and need no further development. That said, it is normally much more difficult to make assumptions about levels of skill than it is about levels of knowledge. If you have been taking your class through a systematic skills development programme, then it makes sense to refer to this, and how far along it your learners are, in your statement of assumptions. If you have recently taken over a class, then you may need to test out reading and listening skills before you can make any safe assumptions. If you are using a letting it happen approach, then you will have to think hard about what you can assume in terms of general knowledge which will form a background to the text or listening piece. Here are some example statements of assumptions: The students have good gist listening skills but are not very used to listening to radio news. The students have come across most of the vocabulary before, but only in their reading. The students are familiar with the topic area - it was the subject of a discussion in a previous lesson. The students have good top-down processing skills but tend to make mistakes ill interpreting grammatical discourse markers.

Procedures for the Systematic Development of Receptive Skills

Bottom-up listening skills development If you follow a systematic approach to teaching listening skills according to Gillian Browns recommendation, then you might want to include phonology teaching procedures in your listening lessons. You could go beyond the phonological level and provide lexis and discourse recognition tasks, too. Procedures for developing aural recognition skills A. Procedures to develop recognition and discrimination of phonological features 1. Model, drill, show on board phonemes, consonant clusters at word boundaries, weak
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forms, main stress, intonation 2. Students show recognition (by raising: a left/right hand; a red/blue rod; a card with 1 or a card with 2 written on it; etc. ) of: word boundary phenomena (Did you hear x or y?) minimal pairs stress recognition (Which word was stressed flower or red?) intonation recognition (Did the intonation on the stressed syllable go or

3. Students listen and mark stress on a transcript. 4. Students listen and mark pause, change in pitch, etc. by drawing a line. B. Procedures to develop recognition of lexis 1. Students respond to instructions (by, e.g. marking a route on a map, numbering or lettering a diagram, etc.) 2. Students hold up flashcards of dates, numbers, names, they have heard. 3. Bingo - students cover words they have heard on their bingo cards. 4. Students spot words in a given category (e.g. time words: yesterday, tomorrow, etc.; transport words: get on, take, get there, etc.) using flashcards or writing them down. C. Procedures to develop recognition of discourse features 1. Students hold up flashcards, write down, play bingo etc. but for logical connectors e.g. so, and , but, because, although, in spite of the fact that, besides , etc.; and other cohesive devices e.g. not only... but also; for one thing ... for another ... besides; etc. 2. and for topic sentences (the sentence in a part of a lecture or monologue which establishes the topic). Bottom-up reading skills development Procedures for developing bottom up reading skills fall into two main categories: helping learners cope with unfamiliar vocabulary and helping them develop text analysis skills. Procedures to help students decode texts from the parts to the whole (bottom-up strategies) A. Procedures to develop bottom-up vocabulary decoding skills 1. Provide input on suffixes and prefixes; students have to work out meanings of
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unfamiliar words. 2. Help students recognise words in families by getting them to complete word grids: Noun
description

Adjective
descriptive suggestive

Verb
describe persuade

3. Present compound words and ways of working our their meanings from components, overflow, bus ride, hairband, lipstick 4. Provide input on cognate words where there is a systematic way of getting from English to students language. B. Procedures to develop recognition of discourse features 1. Present grammatical reference words and show how they refer backwards and forwards to other words and phrases in the text. 2. Do the same with typical lexical reference words. For example, you can put a circle around a lexical reference word and show, with an arrow, what it refers to. 3. Present discourse linking words (e.g. if, so, because, though, etc.) 4. Students put together a text whose paragraphs have been scrambled, discussing why they have made their decisions. Top down listening and reading skills development If you want to apply a systematic approach to developing top-down reading skills, then you could choose from this procedure list. Procedures to help students decode texts from the whole to the parts (topdown strategies) A. Pre-reading and pre-listening procedures (helping students to summon the right schemata) 1. Present e.g. language from a popular newspaper compared with a quality newspaper so that students will be prepared for what they will read according to the text type and style 2. Present e.g. clear speech features from a TV news bulletin, compared with informal speech features from a conversation about the news. 3. Present typical discourse patterns: e.g. a typical essay paragraph pattern is Topic Anca Cehan 22

Restriction Illustration; a typical advertisement pattern is Problem Solution Evaluation; a typical news bulletin pattern is Headline - Background - Points of view. B. while-reading procedures (helping students to use schematic knowledge to understand) 1. Students hear or read topic sentence or introduction - help them to predict what might come next 2. Tell students to use white correction fluid to cancel unfamiliar words - this may help them to work out the approximate meaning from context. 3. Stop tape / Uncover text on an OHT and help students to predict next utterance, word or phrase by: a. referring them to e.g. discourse markers: not only... helps predict but also.., and another thing helps predict additional information, opinions, etc. b. referring them to grammar markers: e.g. When I got home I discovered... helps predict the past perfect c. referring them to stress patterns: e.g. No, no, not THIS Wednesday... helps predict NEXT Wednesday. ' d. referring them to intonation patterns e.g. with TV or radio football results, the intonation of the first team's score helps predict the second teams. Training in interactive reading and listening skills Remember that a sensible and up-to-date approach is interactive - which means that learners are taught to apply both bottom-up and top-down strategies which interact with each other. This means that combining procedures from all the boxes so far would provide a suitable training programme. Training in assertive reading and non-interactive, assertive listening Assertive reading is generally characterised by skimming and scanning. Skimming means glancing over a text in order to get a general idea of what it is about and, particularly, in order to decide if the text is worth reading. The classic way of training students in this skill is to give them a time limit. The more impossible the time limit, the better. You could also get them to read the first sentence of each paragraph, or the first and last sentence of the whole text. Another idea is to ask them to look out for
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capitalised words. The listening equivalent of skimming is what some people call gist listening: listening to get an overall idea of what is going on. This is not to be confused with a first listening procedure, where teacher allows students to listen to a tape once through to get a general idea, before going on to more detailed comprehension questions. The point of this is simply to help learners over the difficulties of alienation from the tape recorder. Gist-listening training supposes that students are not able to listen and get a general picture and therefore need to be helped to do so. The most obvious way of doing this is to expose students to different noninteractive listening pieces and to point out, by comparison, what sort of overall message is going on. If possible, this should be done with taped material where even a competent language user could not make out the actual words. For example, you could have students listen to two supermarket announcements and show them how the general phonological features indicate if the announcement is for a member of staff or for the public. Scanning means looking over a text as quickly as possible but with a view to finding specific information, or if not information, then something else which corresponds to your previously formulated purpose. Most adult students do not need any special training in this skill since they are perfectly capable of doing it in their own language. Most lessons which include scan reading aim, in fact, to test students ability in this area, rather than help them to do it better. As with skimming, it is extremely important to clarify whether the procedure in the lesson is to train students to scan read, or to test their ability to do so, or, as is much more likely, to use scanning merely as a way of focusing students attention on something, usually grammar or lexis. There cannot really be a direct listening equivalent of scan reading, but a case could be made for training students to 'listen out' for information they have already decided they need. Using, say, airport announcements with a pre-set task would certainly test their ability to do this. Allowing skills learning to take place without specific training If you are of the opinion that specific training in skills work is inappropriate, then different procedures will suggest themselves. The key ideas here are confidence and authenticity. Confidence Building. For skills learning to take place without specific
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instruction, as, indeed, for any learning to take place, learners need to be made to feel as confident as possible. The following procedures are all tried and tested ways of achieving this. Procedures for building confidence with listening pieces and texts 1. If you are planning to make extensive use of a tape recorder or video recorder for listening, then you can help them to feel confident by using the equipment in the first instance to play music or to show film with no dialogue. 2. Use a short extracts at first, building up to longer pieces. 3. With both listening and reading, confidence can be built up by providing very easy tasks initially, moving on to more difficult ones. 4. Students can increase their confidence in reading by underlining everything they understand (this encourages a positive attitude, focuses attention on meaning rather than on difficulties, and provides a vocabulary avoidance strategy) Creating an Authentic Environment. Allowing skills learning to take place requires the creation of an authentic environment in the classroom: if we assume that students will pick up the skills (as opposed to learning them systematically), they will only do so if the conditions are propitious. Authentic listening and reading in the normal run of things There are many thoroughly authentic instances of listening and reading in the classroom which present themselves in the normal run of things. The following procedures provide, in themselves, authentic listening:
giving instructions, checking registers, answering questions, instructions, encouraging students, correcting, explaining, checking, answering questions, solving students problems.

Authentic listening activities in class which do not necessarily occur normally, but which can easily be made to occur are, among others, student presentations and prelesson chit-chat. Authentic reading is less common in the normal run of things and tends to be restricted to reading what teacher has written on the board and reading homework corrections. Creating a purpose, imposing a role
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Having decided to introduce reading or listening beyond the normal run of things, in other words to do a listening or reading lesson, the first step to take in order to create an authentic environment is to set up a purpose and a reader/listener role. Compare the following teachers approaches. a a) Right, turn to p.67 and read the text Ferryboat to Birkenhead. b b) Imagine you are in a music store trying to decide which recording of a particular piece of music to buy. What, in the blurb on the inlay, would you be looking for to help you decide which recording to buy? c) Did you know there was a plane crash in Northern Spain yesterday? What do you know about it? What do you want to know about it? groupwork feedback... OK, now you can find some of the answers to your questions in this News broadcast. d) Teacher walks in with arm in sling and starts teaching. He teaches normally until finally a student cannot contain his concern/curiosity any longer, and asks him what happened to his arm. Teacher then tells the story. Students listen and interact with storyteller by asking for clarification, detail, etc. With reference to purpose and motivation in these examples: In example (a) the purpose is only in the teachers mind; there is no reader role. In examples (b) and (c) the purpose and motivation are fabricated by establishing previous knowledge and arousing curiosity. In example (d) the purpose and motivation are authentic. When using videotape for listening you can use the sound-off procedure to establish which person on the screen students are supposed to emulate and, therefore, why they are listening. For example, you might show them a scene in a hotel reception and assign them the role of the guest. They would then have to listen out for things like the room number, meal timings, etc. Providing Adequate Background Information. In an authentic situation, a reader or listener brings a deal of background information to bear. In class, it may be a case of providing the background information, if students do not already have it, or drawing it from students, if they do. The following procedure is drawn from a lesson where the aim was to provide practice in listening to interviews. It rested on the assumption that a systematic skills
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training was inappropriate and that the piece of listening was just above the students' level of competence. Introduce topic = Life on the dole; get students in pairs to draw up a list of imagined impressions of life on the dole, ego advantages/disadvantages. Introduce the characters on tape (Scottish ex-shipwelder and family) students predict what life for this family is like. Input information about Scotland - Glasgow - The Clyde - decline of heavy industry jobseekers allowance system, etc. as necessary. Ask if they have any personal experience of life on the dole and draw out any possible cultural/content differences between this and Scotland. Get students to discuss, e.g. societys general attitude towards the jobless. Input any relevant language, especially items which will come up on the tape. Reading or listening and responding If you want students to simulate, as far as possible, an authentic reading or listening situation, then it is a good idea to encourage them to respond to what they hear or read in some way or other. You may find this responding referred to as Interactive listening or Interactive reading. This is potentially confusing because, as we have seen, the term interactive in this context usually refers to a combination of top-down and bottom-up strategies. The following procedures are all intended to help learners to respond while they are listening or reading. Procedures for encouraging response to reading and listening A. Procedures for encouraging response to a reading text 1. Give students a set of comments ( What rubbish! That's interesting. I didnt know that , etc.) Students have to write the comments in the margin while they are reading. 2. Give students a set of headings which they must apply to appropriate paragraphs. 3. Give students a set of sentences which they must fit into the text at appropriate places. 4. Ask students to invent their own paragraph headings and their own sentences for insertion. 5. Get students to role-play author and reader - give the reader a set of questions; the author has to re-read the text and try to reply. (e.g. When you wrote... ..., did you mean or ?)
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B. Procedures for encouraging response to a listening piece 6. Ask students to interrupt/stop the tape and ask for clarification where necessary. Teach them appropriate language for doing so. 7. Give students a set of comments ( What rubbish! That's interesting. I didnt know that . etc.) Ask them to interrupt/stop the tape and make the comments in appropriate places. 8. With dialogue material, stop the tape after each line and ask students to say what they think the other person is going to say. C. Procedure for encouraging responses to either a text or a listening piece 9. Ask students to fill in charts, forms, etc. where appropriate. 10. Ask students to take notes, especially from lectures, news, current affairs, etc. 11. Provide students with the 'task' that would be carried out if they were listening/reading outside the classroom. For example, after listening to recorded messages on an answering machine, learners note down the relevant information to pass on to their flat mates.

Example Lesson Plans

The first two lesson plans are for lessons whose main aim is to focus on grammar or vocabulary. The third plan is for lessons whose main aim is to provide students with reading or listening strategies they can apply to their extensive reading in or out of the classroom. LESSON PLAN 1 Preamble: This lesson is really about specific language practice. You could also justify this lesson in terms of a letting it happen skills approach: this would add to the rationale for doing some purpose setting activities. Level Aims Intermediate To provide further practice in passive forms, particularly the present prefect passive. To provide submissive reading practice of travel guides. Time Aids/Materials
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60 minutes Text from Compact Intermediate, p 37

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+ two tasks, pp. 37 and 38. Attached quiz. OHT of 'Text type focus' questions Board (see attached diagram) Assumptions Students are quite aware of passives but need more practice to help them become familiar with them. Students have done work on tour brochures. Students have looked up a list of words (oasis, dates, picked, staging post, trading routes, ) before the lesson. Anticipated problems Solutions Students will not be very motivated to want to read the text The lack of obvious reading purpose will have a negative effect on their attempts at understanding. Provide quiz material before reading: e.g. Which were the most civilised cities in the world 2,000 years ago? Discuss cultural holiday destinations arid criteria for putting places on a holiday visit list. Procedure (Lesson Plan 1) Aim/rationale
See 'anticipated problems'- I also want to help students with background knowledge so that their normal (i.e. authentic) reading processes will be activated. To remind students of typical brochure language and to prepare them for a different text type on the same theme. Personalisation of the text and creation of a reading purpose and reader role - in order to set up as authentic a reading environment as possible. To motivate the reading (see anticipated problems)

Teacher
You are going to read something about a very old city. First, see if you know the answers to these questions. Hand out the attached quiz. Show OHT of text type focus question What sort of holiday do you prefer: seaside, countryside/mountains, sightseeing, shopping? Imagine you have decided to have a cultural sightseeing holiday in the Middle East. How would you choose which places to visit? Which of these factors is most important for you? Write on board: (See
29

Students
Students attempt to complete quiz. I will give help and information as required Answer question = 1

Est. time
10 mins

5 mins 15 mins

Answer questions possibly discuss and share opinions.

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To re-focus attention on the text type and what to expect from it. Reading and responding -letting it happen - in two ways.

Focus on the passive forms and related practice.

diagram) In order to decide which places to visit, would you look at a tour companys brochure, or a travel guide book? Why? Read the text and decide if you would like to visit Palmyra. Read the text again and do task 3c. Check with two or three students that you agree on the answers to 3c. Go round helping, suggesting, correcting as necessary. Look at the Language focus box. Work with your partner and do a) and b). Go round, helping, suggesting, correcting, as necessary.

Discuss, in pairs, the list of criteria Students quickly discuss - elicit that the guide book would be more reliable. Read silently. Quick discussion. Read silently again. Complete task individually. Compare results.

15 mins

Work through language box tasks.

15 mins

LESSON PLAN 1 - PRE-READING QUIZ

Discuss these questions with another student. See how much you know and ask me for help, if you need it. 1. Which were the most civilised cities in the world 2,000 years ago? 2. Point out Syria on the world map on the classroom wall. 3. What do you know about trade between China and Europe 2,000 years ago? What were the main products going from east to west? 4. Can you think of any ancient cities in your country? 5. What are they like now?
LESSON PLAN 1

- Text Type - Focus Question - OHT

Which of the following sentences comes from a holiday brochure: 1. If youre looking for ancient charm combined with the exotic delights of the Middle East while still enjoying the five-star comforts of a luxury hotel, then Palmyra is the place for you. 2. Palmyra is one of the ancient wonders of the world but a new international hotel has just been built there to attract tourists. 3. I came to Palmyra quite by chance: older than Rome and just getting into the tourist markets, I found it charming, yet somehow frustrating.
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LESSON PLAN

1 - Board Diagram

Good night life Something different from other places Good quality hotel Good transport Good shops High level of historical importance Beautiful buildings LESSON PLAN 2 Preamble: This lesson, like the previous one, has a focus on language form countable and uncountable nouns and their determiners. However, the approach, as far as the language is concerned, is to let the examples sink in rather than address the issue in a grammatical way. In any case, it would be very difficult, at elementary level, to explain why the guest says: Id like some fruit juice, but Id like scrambled eggs, without some. There is also an element of bottom-up listening training, as there is a focus on the weak form of some, but this is combined with a largely top-down approach, where learners are encouraged to use their hotel schema to predict what is likely to happen in the conversation. Level Aims Elementary To provide practice in the use of countable and uncountable nouns with some, any and zero determiners. To alert students to the weak pronunciation of some to help them identify when it is used. To create the conditions under which listening should take place - letting it happen. Time Aids/Materials Assumptions 55 minutes True to Life Elementary, p 20. Tapescript in Teachers Book, p 219 Students grasp on the area of countable and uncountable nouns is still very shaky they have only just been
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introduced to it. They know most of the relevant vocabulary of food items, numbers and times. They have recently practised asking for repetitions: Im sorry; could you say that again, please? Anticipated problems Solutions Procedure (Lesson Plan 2) Aim/rationale
This background information should help learners cope with the 'disembodied voice' problem and go towards creating an authentic listening environment.

Students may have problems with the problems disembodied voices on the tape recorder, especially as they have had very little experience so far of listening to tapes. Use pictures to establish who and where the speakers are. Pause tape very frequently. Teacher Students Est. time
10 mins

Show pictures of1. Man in hotel bedroom holding phone - clock prominently displaying 7.00. Daylight. 2. Woman on hotel reception, holding phone - clock at 7.00. Where are they? What time is it? Whats the conversation about? By giving a listener role I Imagine you are the receptionist hope to involve students more Point to picture and indicate and, again, to recreate the students. authentic environment in Listen to the guest and fill in the which listening should form. happen. Show the form in the book, p. Listening and responding 20. Play the tape, stopping after more help with authenticity every guest line. Elicit gist of building and part of a Rivers- the receptionists lines before inspired gradual build-up of continuing playing. If students listening skill. Helping seem not to have understood students practise asking for guest, prompt them to ask for I repetition. repetition. Students expect their answers Check with your partner. Have to be checked. There may, you got the same information? also, be students who really Go round checking and helping. need encouragement. Providing practice of Look at the script on p 20. Show countable and uncountable mini script on p 20. Practise nouns, with determiners. ordering breakfast. Pair off students into guest and receptionist.
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In a hotel 7 ill the morning He wants breakfast 15 mins

Listen Im sorry, could you say that again please? Fill in form. Compare completed forms with partners. 5 mins 10 mins Practise with the semi scripted

Focus on weak form of some to help build up bottom-up listening skill. Focus on weak form of some- to help build up bottom-up listening skill. Practice of uncountable and countable nouns and theweak form of some.

Listen for the pronunciation of write on board: some. Which is better or ? Listen, its Practise saying it Co-ordinate oral practice. Listen again - how many times do you hear? Play tape again. Check back - make sure they all heard it. If not, play it again. Practise the dialogue again. Make sure you say.

dialogue. Various responses Repeat 5 mins Listen Two times Practise the dialogue. 10 mins

LESSON PLAN 3 Preamble: This lesson is quite unlike the previous two: there is no specific language focus: it is a thoroughgoing skills lesson, designed to meet a specific skillsbased difficulty the learners had been facing. The approach is top-down this, again, responds to the difficulties voiced by the learners. They were clearly using only a 'bottom-up' approach to their reading and, as a result, getting frustrated. The lesson would need to be carefully balanced with other lessons dealing with bottom-up skills so that learners did not get the wrong impression that 'top-down' is the only way to get into a text. Level Aims Time Aids/Materials Intermediate To increase students awareness of how clarifying your purpose can make reading or listening more effective. 55 minutes Selection of different texts - newspaper article, magazine, review, small ad, newspaper information, etc. OHT with extracted phrases. Worksheet with questions. Assumptions A keen group of students who have been trying to read things at home and who have been coming unstuck - probably because their only reading purpose has been to increase their language knowledge.
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Procedure (Lesson Plan 3) Aim/rationale Teacher Students

Look at the OHT. They are not expected to understand.

Est. time
2 mins

To focus students on the point I know some of you have told me of the lesson and link it to that when you their own learning needs and try to read in difficulties English at home you soon give up because there is too much you don't understand We're going to look at how to help yourself understand. Look at these sentences. Do you understand them? Show OHT To start to focus attention on Hand out worksheet. reading purpose. Choose which text you need to read to get each piece of information on the sheet. Point to texts attached to the walls of the classroom in various places. Help students as necessary To refine process of setting a Sit down and check with the reading purpose. person next to you that you have got the same answers. Collect texts off the walls. Show them one by one to the students. Write down the title of each piece and what it is. This one is easy (Show weather forecast) because the title tells you what it is. Divide the class into pairs or small groups. You (nominating a pair/group) work on the weather forecast, you work on the newspaper
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Go round the room with the worksheet writing down text numbers against questions.

5-8 mins

Sit down. Check answers. Look at texts and write down titles. Discuss what each text is. Check back with T. Get into pairs/groups. Students write down questions (with considerable prompting, help and guidance from

15 mins

Testing the purposeful reading hypothesis. Students will hopefully read the texts and be able to answer some of the questions without getting bogged down.

To round off the reading activity and create a sense of satisfaction. Pass questions on, receive texts, read, answer questions. Focus back on the aim of the lesson: make students aware of the process and how it can be applied.

article, etc. Write down as many questions as you can which you think you might get the answer to in your text. For example (nominating Steak House group) How much does a dinner cost? or (nominating Handy Tips group) Can you get wine stains out of clothes? Pass your questions to the next pair/group. Hand out texts to appropriate pairs/groups i.e. each pair/group gets the text they have the questions for. See how many questions you can answer in two minutes. Now see how many more questions you can answer in another two minutes. Regroup students so that readers are working with people who set the questions. Tell your partner the answers to their questions Show initial phrases on OHT again. Identify the phrase from your text. Discuss with your partner and say it in your own words/translate it. So you call understand things better if you prepare yourself carefully to understand them. For homework, find a text, prepare to read it in the same way. Bring in your questions, the text and your answers for the next lesson.

teacher)

Receive questions. Receive texts. Check questions match the text. Read texts and try to answer questions. Try to answer more questions.

10 mins

Talk to each other, answer the questions and show the part of the text where they found the answer. Look at OHT. Identify phrases. Discuss and translate.

10 mins

10 mins

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They burst into blossom in eight or ten days time. Grab the nearest piece of absorbent paper. Subdued lighting, lots of red velour and potted plants. Other benefits are also offered. W fresh, increasing strong later.
WORKSHEET

For each question, say which text will give you the answer. Write the number of the text after each question.
QUESTION Is it a good idea to plan a picnic for tomorrow? Whats happening in the world at the moment? Is there a new job possibility for me? Where can I take my friend for dinner on Saturday? How can I be a better home-maker/ housewife/ househusband? TEXT NUMBER

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TEXTS
TEXT ONE: Obedient

Flowers

BULGARIAN SCIENTISTS have taught carnations to flower to order.

Previously, after the carnations had been picked in the hothouse, those which had failed to bloom used to be thrown out. Now they are stored in a refrigerator for one or two months. And after being put into an artificial nutrient solution, they burst into blossom in eight or ten days time.
TEXT TWO: Handy

Tips for the Home Wine Stains

If wine is poured accidentally on a tablecloth or somebody's clothing it can be lifted almost magically by thoroughly neutralising it with white wine. If no wine is available apply lots of cold water and salt. If wine is spilt on a carpet dont go dashing about looking for a cloth. Grab the nearest piece of absorbent paper (newspapers or paper towels are ideal) and soak up as much as you can as quickly as you can. Rubbing with a cloth only serves to spread the wine to an even wider area absorbing is the right thing to do. Salt, which absorbs moisture, is very effective. White wine is much less of a problem as it tends to leave little discolouring behind.
TEXT THREE: Malawi

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for the post of personal assistant to the Managing Director, to be based in Malawi. Qualifications: Candidates must be highly qualified in secretarial profession with high speeds in shorthand and keyboard skills: must be full of initiative to be able to act on behalf of the Managing Director in his absence. Salary: This is an executive position with a good salary. Other benefits are also offered. Replies to be addressed to The Group Personnel and Administration Manager, Limbe Leaf Tobacco Company Limited, PO Box 44, Kanengo, Lilongwe 4, Malawi

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TEXT FOUR: Weather

Forecast (6am to 6pm)

London, SE England, East Anglia: Sunny intervals and scattered showers after more general rain at first; wind W, moderate, increasing fresh; max temp 9c. Central S, SW England, Channel Islands: Showers or longer outbreaks of rain, some sunny intervals; wind fresh, increasing strong, with coastal gales; max temp 10 or 11C. Midlands E Central N, NE England, S. Scotland: Sunny intervals, scattered showers; wind NW backing, W fresh, increasing strong later; max temp 7C.

TEXT FIVE: Aberdeen

Steak Houses

Branches 14, mainly London Opening Times Every day, 11 am to midnight Price of our selected meal 17 plus 10 per cent service Licensed Yes Service Waiter Provisions for children None Smoking area None Comments Fairly wide choice, with steaks generally agreed to be tender and cooked as requested. Vegetables were sometimes described as overcooked and rather expensive at 2.75 per portion. Wine and coffee also thought expensive by some. Most people had friendly service although some found it unimpressive, and had problems with their bills. Subdued lighting, lots of red velour and potted plants was a typical description of the interiors, which were also thought clean.

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Exercises
A. What problems in the development of (i) listening skills and (ii) reading skills are specific to or exacerbated by the fact that an L 2 learner is learning in his/her native country? B.(i) Look at one supplementary textbook containing authentic reading material, and then answer the following question: What, in your view, are the characteristics which make one authentic text more suitable than another for EFL purposes? NB If you do not have immediate access to a book of this type, try and answer this question with reference to your commonsense and past experience alone. (ii) Find one authentic text of your own that you might use with a particular group of learners (which you should describe) and briefly outline ways in which it could be exploited in the classroom. We are looking for a few general ideas, not detailed lesson plans. Dont forget to send us a copy of the text. Remember to provide a brief explanation of why you think the activities/ideas you have selected for the text are especially suitable for the particular class you have described. Lesson Planning Exercise 1. In the following list of 10 headings, say which is an aim and which is an activity. a) Develop scan reading skill b) Dialogue building c) Headway p.36 d) Grammar revision - hypothetical conditionals e) Cut-up story f) Further practice of /s/ vs. /z/ and / / vs. / / g) Introduction of language of disagreeing h) Very quick reading i) Warmer j) Elicit use of Present Perfect 2. Look at the copies of two lesson-plans and comment on them.
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3. Complete the lesson preparation worksheet for one of the following three lesson aims: i) ii) iii) to introduce and give practice in used + inf. for discontinued past habits. to introduce and give practice in Ill + inf. for making spontaneous decisions, offers, etc. to introduce and give practice in should + past infinitive for criticism of past actions. 4. Write a lesson plan showing just the introduction, controlled practice and board stage for one of the following: i) ii) Going to + infinitive I think youd better + infinitive.

NB: Include class level, aims, assumed knowledge, anticipated problems and materials as headings in your plan.

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