Lesson Plan I: Main idea (from Farrell 2002)
Time: 12 p.m. to 12:35 p.m. Class: English Language Focus: Reading Topic: Sport
Objectives: To teach the students to skim to find the main idea of the passage
Prior knowledge: Students know how to locate Information by reading and finding the main
sentence of each paragraph. This lesson is to increase reading speed by scanning and skimming for Information.
Materials:
1. Reading materials - article from a book on sport 2. Overhead projector / OHT’s
3. Whiteboard
Step Time Tasks (Teacher) Tasks (Pupils) Interaction Purpose
1 5-10
mins.
Opening:
Introduction to the topic sport. T activates schema for sport.
Listen T ^ S s Arouse interest.
Activate schema for sport.
T asks students to help him / her write down as many different kinds of sport as they can think of on the whiteboard within three minutes.
Ss shout out the answer to the question as the T writes the answers on the board.
T asks students to rank their favorite sports in order of importance.
T writes the answers.
2 5-7
mins.
Teacher distributes handout on sports schedule from the newspaper.
Ss read the handout and answer the questions.
T <— ^Ss Focus attention of Ss on the concept of skimming for general gist with authentic materials. T asks Ss to read it quickly and
answer the true-false questions that follow it within three minutes.
Ss call out their answers to the T.
T goes over the answers. Ss check their answers.
6 8 Practice Teaching: A Reflective Approach
(ctd.)
Step Time Tasks (Teacher) Tasks (Pupüs) Interaction Purpose
3 15
mins.
T tells students that they just practiced skimming to get the general meaning or gist of a passage. T gives another handout on sport from the textbook {New Clue).
Ss read the handout and answer the questions. Ss T T<— )-Ss Ss<— >T (S ^ S possible) Getting Ss to read passage quickly to get the overall meaning.
T asks the Ss to read and answer the true-false questions written on the paper within 5-7 mins.
T asks Ss for answers and writes them on the board.
4 5
mins.
T summarizes the importance of reading a passage quickly first in order to get the gist.
Ss call out their answers to the T.
T<— >Ss To remind
students what they have just done and
T gives homework of reading the next day’s newspaper front page story and writing down in four sentences the gist of the story.
Ss check their answers. T<— ^Ss why - to develop pupil metacognitive awareness. Follow-up:
Next lesson: To teach the students to skim to find the main idea of the passage.
(T = teacher; Ss = students)
T able 5.2 Lesson plan
Lesson Plan II: DRTA Lesson
Directed reading teaching activity (DRTA; Stauffer 1969) is intended to develop students’ ability to read critically and reflectively. Here is a DRTA lesson outline based on the story “What Goes Around, Comes Around!” below (from Farrell 2008c):
What Goes Around, Comes Around!
John had been watching the two prison guards for two days now. He both hated and feared them. There were many reasons for both. While he was a prisoner these two guards were the most brutal when disciplining prisoners and many had died from their beatings. He had not had much to do with these two particular guards but before he escaped, he had heard enough from the other prisoners not to cross them in any way. Now both were on his trail and so he purposely led them into an area of quicksand, an area he had grown up in and thus knew all too well.
Lesson Plan
Phase /: Ask the students what they think the words in the title, “What Goes Around,
Planning Your Teaching 5 9
Phase II: Distribute a copy of “What Goes Around, Comes Around!” to each student and
do prediction activation exercises with this first paragraph. Show them questions (either on the OHT or written on the board) as follows:
• Title: What Goes Around, Comes Around! O What do you think this story is about? Why?
• John had been watching the two prison guards for two days now. O W hoisJohn?
O How do you know this?
• He both hated and feared them. There were many reasons for both. O Why do you think he hated them?
O Why do you think he feared them?
• While he was a prisoner these two guards were the most brutal when discipUning prisoners and many had died from their beatings. He had not had much to do with these two particular guards but before he escaped, he had heard enough from the other prisoners not to cross them in any way.
O Which country do you think John is from? Why? What d u es teil you that? O Why do you think John did not have experiences with these two prison
guards before? How did he avoid them?
O Sofar, do you think your prediction o f the title is correct?
• Now both were on his trail and so he purposely led them into an area of quicksand, an area he had grown up in and thus knew all too welL
O What does this teil you what may possibly happen? Why?
Distribute each of the remaining paragraphs in sequence and do similar activities with each paragraph.
Phase III: Ask the students to either continue the story or to draw a sketch of the sequence
of events in the story and to continue the sketch with what they think may happen.