8.10.4
Task four
  1. Choose a text from amongst your own teaching materials in which a particular aspect of language is especially strongly featured (eg it may have a lot of past tense forms, subjunctives, extended adjective phrases, etc). This might be either a free-standing passage or one taken from a textbook. It should be about 500 words long (300 for a sub-A-level group) and should be a text you are actually going to use in your teaching in the near future.
  2. Prepare detailed plans for two lessons but this time the focus of your lessons is to be the language used in the text, ie you are going to use the text to teach and practise the text's salient linguistic feature. What will you do first to facilitate students' understanding of the text? How will you explain the linguistic item? And what exercises will you use to practise it? The following questions are intended to guide you in this:
    - Does the text require an introduction from you?
    - Which pre-reading task will you set?
    - Is there any background knowledge you need to activate?
    - Is it worth breaking the text up into sections?
    - Is there any difficult vocabulary you need to deal with?
    - How will you alert students to the feature you are interested in?
    - Can they identify the examples of it in context themselves?
    - Can you get them to formulate any rules themselves?
    - Do you need to provide any formal explanation?
    - Can this be done in L2?
    - How much metalanguage (eg grammar terms) do you need to use?
    - What guided exercises (eg drills) will you use to practise the item?
    - Is there any opportunity for less guided exercises?
    - Can you make use of the themes of the text to practise the linguistic item?
  3. The proof of the pudding is in the eating! Find the earliest opportunity to put your lesson plans into action with your students.
  4. Write a short evaluation of your plans: Did they work? Which aspects were successful? Which worked less well? Why was this? Were there difficulties you had not anticipated? What would you do next time to improve the success of the class?
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