Any teachers in here?

[Maury V.]

Hey family, I am in the process of getting my TEFL certification (150 hours) and this lesson plan is KICKING MY ASS. This is what i'm told to do after I turn it in:

Start with simple present SENTENCES.Then change into the past. Show regular and irregular verb forms. Show how to form questions with "DID" and"WAS/WERE".

Here's the rubric:

Spoiler:

Teaching Grammar Communicatively


Language structure is fundamental in learning a language. Understanding it and knowing when and how to use it is important for our students. The majority of your future students have had some contact with the language but mainly through understanding and learning grammar structures.

Many teachers have been teaching and are still teaching based on the Grammar – Translation Approach around the world. When we teach English and interact with our students, we put them in contact with structures, parts of speech, articles and much more. This means that we are in contact with grammar and language on a daily basis and we teach it directly or indirectly. All major publishers have grammar sections in their course books.

To be able to teach grammar communicatively we recommend that you follow the steps presented below. These steps will guide you in the presentation of your lesson in the lesson planning module.



1. Previous knowledge – Always begin with previous knowledge. If you are going to teach the simple past begin by asking your students questions in the simple present. This builds their confidence in the language and allows to link previous knowledge to new information presented.



2. Provide students with examples – Show your students, in context, when and how to use this new language structure presented.



3. Elicit – Have students provide you with examples. This will allow you to evaluate and assess if they are learning or not.



4. Teach vocabulary – Providing students with new vocabulary will allow them to use the new grammar topic in a different context.



5. Use colour markers / use gestures – The majority of our students are visual learners. Colour markers will allow you to illustrate the new grammar objective. You can write the verb in the past tense in red to highlight it. Give them lots of examples. The more examples they have, the easier it will be for students to understand. Use the board, posters and flash cards as tools to transfer this new knowledge to them.


6. Use construction paper – You can use construction paper, worksheets, colour paper or any other colourful material that will keep your students focused on the learning objective.



7. Use flash cards / visual aids – A picture is worth a thousand words. A flash card can eliminate the use of the native language in the classroom and need to translate.



8. Get students to provide examples – Once you have taught the grammar objective have students provide you with examples in a context. This will also let you know if you were effective in teaching the new grammar objective.



9. Make sure that your students provide you with an affirmative, negative statement and a question (I am a teacher, I am not a teacher, Are you a teacher? ) This will let you know if they are able to use the language in all of its forms.



10. Formula / form / name of tense – Once you have completed the presentation of the grammar topic, let your students know the name of the tense and the formula if necessary.



Make sure that you NEVER begin by presenting the grammar formula first!

Here's the area that needs to be fixed:

I THOUGHT I worked on some of that stuff but it's annoying me. See, i'm talking about the simple past but i'm working on the simple present as an introduction/refresher to see what the students know or remember from previous lessons. I have ONE more chance at turning this in.

Thanks to anyone that helps out.

Maury V.

 

[SuperDeadite]

I'm not a real teacher but I play one in Japan.

 

[aria]

I teach at the (honors) college and law school level so I don't have to worry about this shit

 

[Neo Alec]

I have this certification. Don't sweat it too much. It's not that hard to get. Just put the time in. Seems like you're making it way too complex. I'd just think of a real world example and practice with that. e.g. Ask students what they are doing now or in the future, then ask what they did yesterday. I reccomend starting over and keeping it simple. Don't need all these props.

 

[Maury V.]

Lucky you guys. I'm seriously trying to get some help on this. I've been working on this for THREE weeks and it's been kicking my ass. I can't seem to get any help from my teacher friends back in the states because of the time difference and the foreign teachers here in South Korea are completely useless. BTW Deadite, I was in Osaka again and I totally forgot to tell you. Sorry brudda!

 

[northernsoul]

English Teacher here, but I'm a little unclear as to what it is you are having trouble with. Have you already done this and received negative feedback? Are you designing a lesson plan that revolves around the highlighted section (the part where students discuss a job/career)?

You could set-up a scenario where students discuss their current job (simple present), then change the scenario to where they have now left that job, but must discuss it to a prospective employer, thus making it simple past.

Maybe I'm having a brain-fart, but I'm not sure I understand what it is you are struggling with exactly.

 

[T.A.P.]

I teach at the (honors) college and law school level so I don't have to worry about this shit

You just gotta wave that dick around, don't you?

 

[aria]

You just gotta wave that dick around, don't you?

 

[Maury V.]

English Teacher here, but I'm a little unclear as to what it is you are having trouble with. Have you already done this and received negative feedback? Are you designing a lesson plan that revolves around the highlighted section (the part where students discuss a job/career)?

You could set-up a scenario where students discuss their current job (simple present), then change the scenario to where they have now left that job, but must discuss it to a prospective employer, thus making it simple past.

Maybe I'm having a brain-fart, but I'm not sure I understand what it is you are struggling with exactly.

Oh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that! What I have highlighted is what needs to be worked on. I used what's shown but I still get the same message from the trainer: Start with simple present SENTENCES.Then change into the past. Show regular and irregular verb forms. Show how to form questions with "DID" and"WAS/WERE".

I'm having trouble trying to make sure I present the simple present and past at the same time without confusing the students. I've worked on lesson plans before but not to THIS degree. What i'm thinking about doing is on part one, I can give complete examples on the board using the simple present and showcase how to turn those into the past (i'll use the idea that you gave me). In part two, I will showcase regular and irregular verb forms and showcase questions with "did", "was/were". I think i'm starting to understand this now.

 

[northernsoul]

Just a quick role-play of how I might approach this using the scenario I mentioned:

I would start with questions related to their current job:
"What position do you hold?"
"Do you like your job?"
"What are/is your task/role?"
"What do you learn from this job?"
"What do you do?"
"Have you been promoted?"

Then I would switch to discussing a previous job:
"What position had you held?"?"
"What were/was your role/title?"
"What have you learnt from this job?"
"Did you like this job?"
"What did you do?"
"Were you promoted?"

Just by quickly throwing out a few questions, I have demonstrated several regular and irregular verbs, formed several questions using did/do/was/were. I think with more time this can be expanded. Using the job interview scenario also is also perfect for applying the one-on-one basis they mention.

Lots of variation and exposition could be built from this basis. The students could get to design a curriculum vitae (in English) that could then be used in the faux interview. Also the timeline of a CV would be a great marker to help the students understand what job is simple past, and what job is simple present. You can also expand this to include simple future by having the students talk about what job they would like.

I'm just brain-storming here, so pay no mind if none of this makes sense.

 

[Maury V.]

Just a quick role-play of how I might approach this using the scenario I mentioned:

I would start with questions related to their current job:
"What position to you hold?"
"Do you like your job?"
"What are/is your task/role?"
"What do you learn from this job?"

Then I would switch to discussing a previous job:
"What did you do before that?"
"What were/was your role/title?"
"What have you learnt from this job?"
"Did you like this job?"

Just by quickly throwing out a few questions, I have demonstrated several regular and irregular verbs, formed several questions using did/do/was/were. I think with more time this can be expanded. Using the job interview scenario also is also perfect for applying the one-on-one basis they mention.

Lots of variation and exposition could be built from this basis. The students could get to design a curriculum vitae (in English) that could then be used in the faux interview. Also the timeline of a CV would be a great marker to help the students understand what job is simple past, and what job is simple present.

I'm just brain-storming here, so pay no mind if none of this makes sense.

Dude, this makes a LOT of sense! I managed to find some sites that'll help explain how to teach this as well: Lesson 1 and Lesson 2. I'm going to finish this TODAY!

 

[northernsoul]

Glad to have helped. This reminds me, I need to really get on my ESL and TEFL certification.

 

[Neo Alec]

Are you finishing this soon? Good luck on it. I can tell you want it to be perfect, and I did the same. My lesson plans and test responses were very detailed. You're gonna be fine though, as long as you put in some study time.

 

[Maury V.]

Are you finishing this soon? Good luck on it. I can tell you want it to be perfect, and I did the same. My lesson plans and test responses were very detailed. You're gonna be fine though, as long as you put in some study time.

I want to be finished with the lesson plan THIS WEEK. I want the same for the final exam. It's an online course so I can be finished within a week if I wanted to.

 

[Blue Steel]

I see, this is for a TESL/TEFL course. I was thinking, this would never be that big of a deal for an actual class. Good luck dude, it's hard to fuck this kind of thing up. And if you've been working on it for three weeks I'm sure you'll come up with something legit. I need to get my ass back East, rat race here is so depressing.

 

[Maury V.]

Here's what I have thus far:

Step One: Quickly review how much the students know about the simple present. Give examples on how a conversation about what is happening currently is introduced, conducted, and concluded. We will introduce the following formula: subject + verb

After explaining what will be done, the teacher will have examples written on the board. There will be sentences written in the simple present form however they will be incomplete. Students will be called individually to put the sentence in the correct verb form. Affirmative, negative, and questions in the simple present will be used in this exercise. The exercise goes as followed: A seven sentence paragraph will be shown on the board via the projector. There will be at least 14 blank spots with the verb in parentheses. Each student will be called on and asked to use the correct verb form. This exercise can be done efficiently if each student has his or her own dry/erase board and marker.

Step Two: The students will be asked to pull an occupation out of a box (if the students are adults and they have jobs, this will not be necessary). This exercise will help refresh students on answering questions about their current and previous job(s).

When talking about their current job, they will answer the following questions in the simple present:
"What position do you hold?"
"Do you like your job?"
"What are/is your task/role?"
"What do you learn from this job?"
"What do you do?"
"Have you been promoted?"

After this exercise, they will answer the following questions in the simple past:
"What position had you held?"?"
"What were/was your role/title?"
"What have you learnt from this job?"
"Did you like this job?"
"What did you do?"
"Were you promoted?"

By working in this exercise, the students will be introduced to regular and irregular verbs (if they haven’t been introduced already) and they will answer questions using words such as did/do/was/were.

 

[Hidden Character]

Thankfully, my lesson plans are nowhere near that complicated. In fact, mine are just copy/edit/paste from week to week.

 

[Maury V.]

Step One: Quickly review how much the students know about the simple present. Give examples on how a conversation about what is happening currently is introduced, conducted, and concluded. We will introduce the following formula: subject + verb

After explaining what will be done, the teacher will have examples written on the board. There will be sentences written in the simple present form however they will be incomplete. Students will be called individually to put the sentence in the correct verb form. Affirmative, negative, and questions in the simple present will be used in this exercise. The exercise goes as followed: A seven sentence paragraph will be shown on the board via the projector. There will be at least 14 blank spots with the verb in parentheses. Each student will be called on and asked to use the correct verb form.

After this exercise, there will be another where the students will conjugate a single sentence using regular and irregular verbs. We will review the simple present then transition to the simple past.This exercise can be done efficiently if each student has his or her own dry/erase board and marker.

Step Two: The students will be asked to pull an occupation out of a box (if the students are adults and they have jobs, this will not be necessary). This exercise will help refresh students on answering questions about their current and previous job(s).

When talking about their current job, they will answer the following questions in the simple present:
"What position do you hold?"
"Do you like your job?"
“Why or why not?”
"What are/is your task/role?"
"What do you learn from this job?"
"What do you do?"
"Have you been promoted?"

After this exercise, they will answer the following questions in the simple past:
"What position had you held?"?"
"What were/was your role/title?"
"What have you learned from this job?"
"Did you like this job?"
"What did you do?"
"Were you promoted?"

By working in this exercise, the students will be have the ability to work with regular and irregular verbs and they will answer questions using words such as did/do/was/were.

If the students are middle school or high school students, the following jobs will be provided in the box:
Teacher, police officer, banker, doctor, dancer, pilot, archetech, chef, author, fire fighter, nurse, programmer, athlete, hair dresser, and clothes deisgner. Depending on time, the teacher may ask the student what they want to do as a career to further engage in their aspirations.

 

[Maury V.]

After struggling for a WEEK over this, I FINALLY got a pass on my lesson plan. All I have to do now is take my final exam two more times and i'm good to go. Thanks to those that helped.