Sample Activity lesson plan
No.
Students: 15 - 20
Level: Intermediate
to advance
Time: 4
sessions of 1hr
Age: 18
- 25
Objectives:
Students will:
- ·
Read
and analyze a project description posted on the class webpage.
- ·
Write
a technical report using a guide given and discussed in class.
- ·
Work
in teams.
- ·
Use
Google docs’ resource.
- ·
Use
a peer feedback check list to revise other team’s work.
- ·
Come
up with an accurate and complete technical report.
- ·
Upload
their work to the class webpage in order to let other writing learners see
their work and improvement.
Materials
·
Computers
with internet access for students’ and the teacher
·
Over
head projector connected to teacher’s computer
Procedures
2.
After
the elements analysis, students must find solutions to such problems; also they
will need to include proposals, and recommendations for management.
3.
The
ideas are going to be written in a brainstorming or free writing style
4.
Each
team will receive a handout with information about the technical report
structure and language use
5.
Each
section of the technical report structure is going to be analysed and written
in class so language doubts can be solved
6.
By
the end of each section analysis each student is going to be able to turn in a
first draft
7.
Students
will be asked to form teams of four people
8.
Students
will be introduced to the Google Docs’ resource
9.
Each
team is going to come up with one piece of writing by comparing ideas and
sharing information about it, the new document is going to be written in Google
Docs so all team mates are able to edit the document and discuss changes made,
the teacher is going to be monitoring each team Google Docs’ work
10.
After
the second draft is finished, the teacher will introduce students to peer
feedback method, a checklist is going to be developed in class
11.
Based
on the check list developed in class each team is going to revise other teams’
work
12.
After
the peer feedback activity, teams will turn in the third draft with corrections
based on peer feedback
13.
Third
draft is going to be analysed by the teacher, the final draft is going to be
based on this analysis
14.
Students
will turn in the final draft which is going to be published on the class
webpage.
Evaluation
The following
rubric is going to be used to evaluate students’ work and improvements during this
activity:
-
100%
: The team members were engaged in class discussions during the activity; the
students created an accurate and organized piece of writing containing all the sections
and contents mentioned in class; also they expressed their suggestions and
solutions using an accurate language, it has been used a wide range of
vocabulary and grammatical structures appropriately.
-
75%:
The team members had the necessary information form discussions; the students
created a good piece of writing containing all the sections mentioned in class
while contents need more work; suggestions and solutions were understandable
but not written in an accurate mode, vocabulary was well used and grammatical
structures were mostly used appropriately.
-
50%:
Team members where barely present on class discussions; the students developed
a basic piece of writing containing most of the sections described in class
while contents were incomplete or wrong; suggestions and solutions were hard to
understand, vocabulary was used repetitively and grammatical structures were
not appropriate.
Materials Evaluation and Design
This essay intends to explain and present
justifications to the materials used in the lesson plan included that consists
of an activity for Mechatronic Engineering students in an ESP writing course. Such
justifications and explanations are going to be based on the lectures from the
materials evaluation design course. The lectures come from texts of specialists
on the materials design and evaluation field.
The lesson plan is going to be analysed section by
section in order to cover all its elements and the thoughts, ideas, or theories
in which these materials for the lesson activities where based on. This
analysis will also include a description of each electronic material used in
the lesson plan, its components, and usefulness.
For the materials selected and included on the lesson
plan, it has been taken into account the learner factors list for materials
selection suggested by Daoud and Celce-Murcia (1979), Mathews (1991), Harmer
(1991), Mc Donough and Shaw (1993), and Cunningsworth (1995), which consists of
a list of factors that has to be considered when selecting a material for a
specific purpose in order to be suitable for learners needs and proficiency, usefulness,
and according to the lesson’s goals, topic, and items. The next chart shows the
elements in the list, and the results:
|
1. Age range
(18 – 25)
|
2. Proficiency level in the target language
(intermediate to advanced)
|
3. First language
(Spanish)
|
|
4. Academic and educational level
(College)
|
5. Socio-cultural background
(same)
|
6. Occupation
(students)
|
|
7. Reasons for studying the target language
(academic and future professional use)
|
8. Attitudes to learning
(it is very necessary for them to learn ESP)
|
9. Previous language learning experience
(ESP courses on college)
|
|
10. Language-learning aptitude
|
11. General expectations
|
12. Specific wants
|
|
13. Preferred learning styles
|
14. Sex distribution
(mostly male students)
|
15. Interests
(Mechatronic engineering related topics)
|
The first electronic material that is going to be
needed for this activity is the http://marianagorillaz.wix.com/writing-activities class web page; Wix.com is a
cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create professional websites,
through the use of online "Drag & Drop" tools. Users can add
contact forms, email, community forums, etc. to their websites using a variety
of Wix applications.
The web page
has been designed to present the writing activities of the course and tools
that might be useful for students during the writing process, also student’s
doubts about any activity or tool included can be answered by the teacher on
the blog section that the webpage wix.com offers.
Some of the electronic tools that come handy when writing
are included on the web page by some buttons with links to the web pages, such
tools are:
-
Linguee:
a translator webpage that covers many languages including English and Spanish.
Something that is particular about this translator is that the translated word
is given with context so the user can read between many (correct) options and
choose the word that is more suitable.
-
Cambridge
Dictionary webpage
-
Thesaurus
-
Wittenstein
Engineering Glossary
The next electronic resource for teaching writing may demand
certain conditions for its proper use like Gmail account, internet connection
while writing; request the entire group to work on the page by sending request
notifications, also certain technology knowledge on students, but its benefits
worth it. This resource is named Google Docs.
Documents, spreadsheets, presentations can be
created and edited with Google Docs,
also documents imported through other web pages, or sent via email can
be edited. Documents can be saved to a user's local computer in a variety of
formats, documents as well are automatically saved on Google's servers to
prevent the loss of documents when being edited, and a revision history is
automatically kept so past edits can be viewed when needed, these can be tagged
and archived for organizational purposes too.
The main characteristic that made me choose Google
Docs for my lesson plan is that it serves as a collaborative tool for editing
documents in real time. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple
users simultaneously. The editors are able to leave comments about the text in
order to have a better revision experience so the document passes through many
revisions from people with different criteria, as much as needed.
The author (in this case the student) is going to
obtain a well written piece of text, still there are previous lesson activities
to be done like the check list developing for peer feedback, or at least
previous instruction for a good paper examination.
Something that may interfere or modify the
materials effects on students or performance during the activity is the teacher
performance, (according to Bruder 1978, and Cunningsworth 1995) the teacher
needs to:
1.
Think of them
as target language users and the speakers of the learner’s first language, this
way the teacher is going to be able to notice what kind of help students are
going to need in determined activity and design or adapt materials for that
need.
2.
Familiarize
with the target language culture, in this case I think that the teacher needs
to become familiar with the correct or appropriate terms and vocabulary for
Mechatronic engineering in order to present appropriate and helpful materials
for these students.
3.
Have the
ability of adapt materials and prepare supplementary materials
4.
Experience of
teaching the kind of learner for whom the materials are being selected.
5.
Attitude to
teaching and o learners
6.
Time available
for preparation
7.
Beliefs about
teaching-learning preferred teaching style and method.
When teachers are conscious of these
characteristics, then the lesson content and the class itself can be considered
as complete and successful.
Conclusions
The materials mentioned during this essay cover the
main characteristics to be considered as suitable and useful for student’s needs
and characteristics. The materials are also adaptable because the writing genre
can be changed by the teacher and these tools are still useful and relevant for
students, it also helps to increase the student’s performance.
Both teachers and students need to work together to
make an appropriate use of the materials selected and take the best from its
characteristics, not only for this activity but for any, at any course.
References
Mc Grath , I. (2003). Materials evaluation and design for
language teaching. (1 ed., p. 321). Edinburg, Scotland : Oxford university
press.
Tomlinson , B. (1998). Materials development in language
teaching. (1 ed., p. 368). Cambridge
university press.
