Suggested Lesson Plan for Day 1

Advice & suggestions about starting an ESL/ELT/EFL “refresher course” lasting two years (90 hours in all)

Our course consisted of one hour in the classroom (presentations and pairwork activities) and one hour in an audio language lab (listening comprehension, oral exercises, free speaking activities, and tutorials, i.e., one-to-one sessions with the teacher).
Students can do the “lab activities” on computers, MP3 players, smartphones, or other mobile devices if no lab is available. If this is impossible, use the teacher’s computer with the students. Of course, when no such equipment is available, you can still use these activities by having the students read the scripts to each other and do pairwork with the cloze or grammar exercises. This procedure will not give the same results as having the learners work independently using audio devices, but it will at least have everybody “speaking.”

The activities below work well, even with heterogeneous groups going from weak intermediates (A2) to advanced learners (C1/C2). The emphasis is on “helping each other progress” in the classroom, practicing vital structures and pronunciation in the lab, and testing one another to reinforce learning.

Teachers should use the lab session—when all the learners are busy doing the audio work—to have “tutorials” with their students. These individual sessions are far more worthwhile than listening to the students in their booths when they are working with their headphones on. Personal time with the teacher is of considerable value for all learners, whatever their level.

Many language teachers in charge of university courses start the year by asking the students to introduce themselves. I never use this technique, which demands “spontaneous” introductions. It is unfair to ask students to submit themselves on the first day of class without prior preparation. On Day 1, the students are a bit rusty, even though they may be good at English. On top of it, they often feel intimidated by such an exercise. Some may seem to suffocate on their words, speaking at an almost inaudible level. Others may stutter since they have had no time to practice beforehand.

Consequently, students apprehend the moment when they will be “performing” and do not even listen to the other students’ introductions. In training seminars, I always tell teachers of English as a second language to keep in mind what their reaction would be if they were asked point blank to speak intelligently about themselves in front of their colleagues in Spanish, Italian, Russian, or any other language, which they do not speak perfectly. The critical situation to stay away from is one that may cause a feeling of “humiliation.” Moreover, going around the room and having the students speak one after another is a perfect example of a “dead classroom” with little STT( student talking time) and undoubtedly lots of (TTT teacher talking time). This doesn’t make for a pleasant atmosphere or give a good impression on the first day of a course, as everyone is either bored or anguished immediately.

It is far better to give students time (at least a week) to prepare these presentations properly, and I ask them to introduce another class member—not themselves. Students often don’t know each other on the first day. That extra week gives them time to get acquainted with at least one member of the class and be able to speak nicely about them. I would give them written instructions about introducing their partner and ask them to learn their texts by heart. This exercise on the second day becomes a most enjoyable activity with a lot of laughing and applauding! It goes quickly, and there is no humiliation or embarrassment since the exercise has been prepared and practiced. Below is the assignment I gave them:

Introductions-assignment

Another exercise I never use on the first day involves asking the class what they want to study or do during the course. Students are often reluctant to put forward such suggestions. Either they have no opinion or are almost ready to admit they would welcome a very relaxed approach!

The teacher’s role is to present a complete program on that first day and tell the students how to fulfill the requirements and get a good grade. If there is a core curriculum that several teachers have elaborated together, this gives even greater “importance” to the course. Naturally, if students volunteer suggestions, the teacher should make a note of them and see how they can be incorporated into the program. Even if the syllabus is relatively detailed, a place is undoubtedly available for these suggestions.

Starting a course effectively

So, how does one get off to a perfect start? I would generally spend 10 minutes in the beginning explaining the program (enough for the first day) and then about 5 minutes signing the students up for their first oral presentations, usually, tutorials (one-to-one sessions) to be held during the lab sessions.

The signing-up activity is an excellent opportunity to work on “dates” authentically. Show the students a calendar of coming classes and ask them to choose by putting up their hands and telling you when they will do their “private” presentations. If there is no way to organize tutorials during lab work, students can at least sign up to do presentations in front of the whole class or with the teacher in a corner when the others are doing written work.

After the signing up, I would immediately proceed to pair work, usually with a spelling exercise. Students need at least 20 minutes for this exercise, a great icebreaker that can be used with near beginners, intermediate, and even advanced learners.

Spell to Partner

There are two slightly different pages, one for each student to work on spelling aloud. The words to be spelled with the above PDF version cannot be modified, but teachers who wish to have a DOC file that they can personalize by adding comments, websites, or e-mail addresses that mean something to their students-, can write to me.

The teacher has 20 minutes left in the classroom for “Socializing” part 1, an exercise students do in three groups. Typically, when the hour is over, each student has worked with at least three other students during the lesson. The first 60 minutes end with much laughter, and students are even surprised that time is up!

Socializing

“Socializing” in a modifiable DOC WORD format that you can personalize is will soon be available.

Our classes generally lasted two hours with one hour in the lab, so half of the groups did the opposite. In other words, they started in the lab and then did the one hour in the classroom as described above. Naturally, we alternate every week.

Using this strategy, the first lab hour starts with a short explanation (in English!) of how the lab works and what the students are expected to do. If you are using iPods, MP3 players, tablets, or smartphones, a program should be shown either on an overhead projector or directly on the screens of the individual players.

We recommend you begin with a listen-and-repeat exercise from a book of dialogs the class must purchase. There are many excellent ones, but I prefer those with recorded listen-and-repeat sequences—spaces for the student to repeat or answer orally. It is much too tiring to keep putting the recording on pause and not feasible to ask students to stop their players and repeat quietly during the class! We also chose a self-teaching book where all the dialogs had been translated into the student’s native language.

After the dialog, it is advisable to use a drill or two with the first grammar point the students should work on. Usually, for Day 1, it is the simple present versus the simple past. I appreciate “Developing Skills,” published by Longman, which teachers should purchase. I adapted them to make fill-in exercises so that students would have a trace of the oral work they had done. There is no key since the recording is the key. The teacher can also quickly go around the class discreetly, checking that everyone has the correct answer.

"Developing Skills"

Developing Skillls 3&7-Fill in Sheet

Tranformation drills by LA Alexander published by Longman

A narrative with a few essential grammar points: “Honesty is the Best Policy”

Once the transformation drills have been mastered orally, we move on to a story that illustrates “the simple present versus the simple past.” My favorite narrative to start the year is “Honesty is the Best Policy.” Students listen in the lab and then explain what they have understood to their partners. Next, they listen again, but this time with a “gap-filling” sheet. The fill-ins are either on a page or two in a booklet that is given out or just a worksheet handed out for that particular lesson.

There are two ways to work on the listening comprehension exercise Honesty is the Best Policy:

• Either over two sessions. In that case, see ESL Lesson Plan “Honesty” LC & (Oral/Written) Worksheets

• Or in one session with the files below:

Recording (continuous):
“Honesty is the Best Policy”

Honesty Continuous Recording

Recording (listen and repeat):

Honesty Listen&Repeat

LC Fill in exercise:

Honesty Cloze exercise

Key to be used with the recording:

Honesty Key

I must admit I much prefer giving the students a booklet of 20 or even 100 pages to handing out separate sheets at each lesson. The students realize immediately that the course has been well planned, but such a booklet requires much preparation—usually by a team of teachers. That is why I put all the work I did for our course in “QualityTime-ESL: The Digital Resource Book 2.0 “ (currently unavailable) As most of the files are in DOC in the book, it is possible to personalize them by adding information or modifying parts. The teacher can also change the layout and the lettering.

Self-correcting with keys

When the students have finished a fill-in exercise in the lab (or in the classroom), they come up front, where we have a binder for each hour, and pick up the key they need. Of course, with the new digital labs, students can click on an icon to get the key to check what they have written, but I still feel it is good physical exercise for any learner to get up from a chair and walk over to the binders. When the students have corrected their work, they get some exercise by returning to the binders and putting the keys back under the correct headings!

At the end of the first class, we would show the students the “assignment” page in their booklets so they would know what to do for the following lesson. Then, we would end by singing a well-known song with our headphones on! The words to the song were to be found in the booklets, and since the students had their headphones on, even those who believed they didn’t sing well participated actively. After these first two hours, the students were exhausted but happy since they generally left the lab singing or humming the music we had programmed for the lab!

I hope this advice and these suggestions will be of value to teachers starting in the profession or even professionals with many years behind them. If you have a group of teachers working together on a similar personalized program, you will see that the students look forward to upcoming lessons.