Building the grammar section of a lesson

Context, clarification, and practice

Before watching the lesson

A Stages of a lesson

Most grammar teaching follows this pattern:

A early in the lesson
Language input and
clarification of concept

B the middle of the lesson

Focus on form and phonology,
and very controlled practice

C later in the lesson

Further guided and freer
practice language output

1 Look at these stages of a typical lesson. When do they come in the lesson, early (A), in the
middle (B), or towards the end (C)? Write A, B, or C in the boxes.
The students complete guided activities such as gap-fills, making sentences from prompts,
or multiple-choice exercises.
The teacher uses timelines, scales, and concept check questions to show the meaning of the
new grammar.
The teacher focuses on parts of speech (form) of the new language.
The students see and hear more examples of the new language in context.

The students see or hear the new grammar in context.

The teacher gives intensive practice of the pronunciation of the new language.
The students practise the new language in a freer, more expressive way.

B Looking at language in context

2 Look at these dialogues, which appear in the lesson you are going to see being taught. Then
complete the extract from the lesson plan below by circling the correct answer in ad.
A Oh no!
B Whats happened?
What have you done?
A Ive burnt the toast.
B Yeah, I can smell it.

A Oh no!
B Whats happened? Are you OK?
A The plates have fallen out of the
cupboard.
B Oops! What a mess.

A
B
A
B
A

Ouch!
Whats happened?
Ive burnt my finger.
Are you all right?
Yeah, its not too bad.

LESSON PLAN EXTRACT

Level: Pre-intermediate
a Grammar focus: i) question forms ii) present perfect for recent past actions iii) past simple
b Context: i) small accidents in the home ii) in the kitchen iii) first aid
Marker sentence: Ive dropped an egg on the floor.
c Concept: i) past X present future
egg dropped egg on floor
ii) past present future
egg dropped egg on floor
iii) past X present future
egg dropped egg on floor
d Grammatical form: i) subject + is/are + past participle
ii) subject + was/were + present participle
iii) subject + have/has + past participle

English
Page 

Pre-intermediate DVD teacher training Worksheet

www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result
Photocopiable Oxford University Press 2008

Building the grammar section of a lesson

Context, clarification, and practice

While watching the lesson

The DVD shows extracts of the same lesson taught by two different teachers, Jon and Anne. Read
the questions below. As you watch the DVD, make notes.

Language presentation and clarification

a Warmer How does Jon engage the students in building the context?

b What sequence of classroom organization patterns does he use?
whole class > pairwork > whole class
whole class > groupwork > whole class
c Grammar concept check
How does Jon engage the students at this stage?


Listening to dialogues
d Listening strategies
What listening strategy does Anne help the students with?

e Setting up a game How does Anne set the activity up clearly?

f A game Choose the best aim of this stage:
The students will enjoy playing the game of Bingo.
The students will listen to and understand five model dialogues.
The students will practise listening.

Freer productive practice

g Put it all together What kind of activity do the students do at this stage?
a dialogue writing b discussion c role play d information exchange

h What classroom organization does Jon mainly use for the activity?
a open pairwork b closed pairwork c groupwork d whole class work

After watching the lesson

A Reflection on the lesson

1 In the grammar section of the lesson youve just seen, the Bingo game came between the
teacher-led language clarification stage and the student-focused practice stage. Think about the
role of the game in the lesson and discuss it with a partner.
Consider the following factors:
language input student motivation classroom dynamics
2 At the start of the lesson the teacher wrote How to say whats happened on the board and at
the end of the lesson the students put a tick on the Can do tick bar. Why?
Consider the following factors:
aims self-assessment

English
Page 

Pre-intermediate DVD teacher training Worksheet

www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result
Photocopiable Oxford University Press 2008

Building the grammar section of a lesson

Context, clarification, and practice

B Activating ideas
3 Look at these stages from a different Pre-intermediate lesson. Write the headings from each box
onto each stage. Then put the lesson stages into a logical order by writing 16 in the boxes. The
first has been done for you.
clarifying concept and pronunciation
focus on form
setting the context
freer personalized practice
very controlled practice
less controlled practice
a 

The teacher says Anya goes to the supermarket at the weekend, and points to always. The
students say Anya always goes to the supermarket at the weekend. The teacher says, Jan
plays tennis and points to not usually. The students say Jan doesnt usually play tennis
at the weekend. The teacher continues the drill using several different sentences and
adverbs until the students are producing the sentences confidently.
b 

The teacher draws this scale on the board and asks the students where to write
sometimes and usually.

0 1 2 3 4
never not usually always

The students then repeat the adverbs of frequency after the teacher for pronunciation.
1 c setting the context

The teacher writes The weekend on the board and shows pictures of people doing
different activities, e.g. someone watching a film, two people walking in the
mountains.
d 

The teacher writes theses marker sentences on the board:

S adv V
Stefan sometimes walks in the forest at the weekend.

S aux adv V
Simone and Samuel dont usually cook at the weekend.
e 

In small groups the students talk about what they do and dont do at the weekend,
using the pictures on the board or their own ideas. After five minutes the teacher
reorganizes the class so that each student has a partner from a different group. The
students tell each other what they found out about their classmates.
f 

Students listen to short conversations about weekend activities. Then, with a partner,
they read from the audio script and act out the conversations.

English
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Discussion
4 How much of the grammar of your own language did you study at school? Is it important to
know the grammar of your own language? Why? Why not?
5 You are going to teach an area of grammar tomorrow that you dont feel completely
confident about. Where can you look for information about the grammar point?
6 All lessons are different, but roughly what proportion of time do you think should be spent
on language clarification (input) and language practice (output) when teaching grammar?
Why might this balance vary from lesson to lesson?

Pre-intermediate DVD teacher training Worksheet

www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result
Photocopiable Oxford University Press 2008