Building the grammar section of a lesson

Context, clarification, and practice

1
Before watching the lesson

A Stages of a lesson
Most grammar teaching follows this pattern:

A  early in the lesson B  the middle of the lesson C  later in the lesson
Language input and Focus on form and phonology, Further guided and freer
clarification of concept and very controlled practice 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 a–d.

A Oh no! A Oh no! A Ouch!

B What’s happened? B What’s happened? Are you OK? B What’s happened?
What have you done? A The plates have fallen out of the A I’ve burnt my finger.
A I’ve burnt the toast. cupboard. B Are you all right?
B Yeah, I can smell it. B Oops! What a mess. A Yeah, it’s 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: I’ve 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

Pre-intermediate  DVD teacher training  Worksheet

English www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result

Page  Photocopiable © Oxford University Press 2008

 Building the grammar section of a lesson
Context, clarification, and practice

2
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

3
After watching the lesson

A Reflection on the lesson

1 In the grammar section of the lesson you’ve 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 what’s 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

Pre-intermediate  DVD teacher training  Worksheet

English www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result

Page  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 1–6 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 doesn’t 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 don’t usually cook at the weekend.

e 
In small groups the students talk about what they do and don’t 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.

C 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 don’t 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

English www.oup.com/elt/teacher/result

Page  Photocopiable © Oxford University Press 2008