Lesson title: Writing a personal email
Main objective: to improve students’ writing ability
Specific objectives:
o students will be able to write about unfinished events using present progressive tense
o students will feel comfortable composing short emails and correctly utilizing vocabulary and main elements related to electronic messages
Focal Language Features:
o Grammar: Students will be introduced to the usage of present progressive tense when talking about unfinished events
o Vocabulary: Students will be introduced to common vocabulary related to electronic messages
o Writing: Students will be able to compose simple electronic messages using new vocabulary
o Speaking: Students will practice talking about emails in our life in the elicitation phase
CONTEXT
The students in this class are between 25-33 years old, the majority of them are young professionals with the CLB 3-4 level of language proficiency. They attend evening language courses at one of the private language centers in Russia and there are about 8-10 people in each group. Their main purpose of studying English is to improve their language skills for travelling and communicating with friends from other countries. They attend classes twice a week after work and are mostly highly motivated.
For this lesson I have chosen to use the CLT method with the task-based inductive approach:
o This method allows students to study material and work out the grammar rules themselves (“…grammar was still the main component of the syllabus of CLT courses, even if it was dressed up in functional labels…” (Thornbury, S. 1999)
o It is appropriate for my students’ language level where they can already play and test the language
o When figuring out the rules on their own, my students seem to grasp them quicker “…inductive tasks involve longer processing of the language material. Before the learners formulate any hypothesis about language, they are made to chew over the material……the longer and more thoroughly do we process the material, the better and longer it is remembered” ( Sikorzynska,A. 1995, p.8)
o My students are young adults with busy careers and they usually come to my classes tired after work, which means teaching language in an authentic context will make them more enthusiastic about learning.
o The lesson offers to solve a communicative problem, which is writing a personal email. “Grammar is best taught and practiced in an authentic context and new structure is more likely to stick in learners’ minds if they have immediate and frequent opportunities to use it in some communicative contexts” (Coelho, E. 2004, p.67)
Lead-in part (10 min)
The teacher welcomes students and starts mentally preparing them for the upcoming task
The teacher draws a word web on the board with the question “How do you communicate with your friends and family?” The teacher can ask students what their favorite means of communication are and tell students how she/he keeps in touch with her/his friends. The teacher can also elicit the discussion about the fastest ways to connect with others. The teachers writes the answers on the board.
Elicitation part (10 min)
The teacher asks open and closed questions, assess what students already know about emails
The teacher continues to involve students into discussion about personal emails and what they usually consist of (opening phrase, paragraphs, closing phrase)
When we write to friends, do we use formal or unformal style?
Task 1 (20-25 min)
Task introduction: “In emails people often tell each other about unfinished events. It mostly happens when people don’t keep in touch very often and need to let them know what is happening in their lives these days. Today we are going to read an email from Gabriela to Cathey, where Gabriela talks about her life.”
This part starts with the question – what do we usually write about in personal emails?
(events in our lives that have already happened, are happening now or are being planned for the future).
The teacher writes some of the examples on the board. Which tenses do we use to talk about these events? The teacher adds the names of the tenses beside each event. At this point, some learners might already experience difficulty defining the tense for unfinished events.
Task completion: The teacher asks students to break into pairs and distributes handouts with Gabriela’s email to Cathy. Students are asked to highlight sentences where Gabriela talks about current events in her life. Students work together with their partners to discuss highlighted sentences. Are these events still in progress? Are they happening at the moment while Gabriela is writing her message? Which tense does she use to describe them?
During the previous lesson we discussed the usage of present progressive for the events happening at the moment of speaking. Students are beginning to realize that the events Gabriela is describing are not happening at the moment of writing.
Task-debrief: the teacher is preparing for transition into the next part of the lesson. She/he asks students to read aloud sentences that they have highlighted and writes one of them on the board.
Teach (25 min)
The instructor deductively teaches the grammar rule (in task-based approach grammar and other language elements are taught in the middle)
The teacher quickly refreshes students on the usage of present progressive for talking about events happing right now and tells students they are going to learn about another function of present progressive – describing events in progress. The teacher draws a diagram that shows a point in the past, “now” point and a point in the future and moves from point to point, explaining students the “movement” of the event (“Use charts and other visuals whenever possible to graphically depict grammatical relationships” Form-focused Instruction, Chapter 22). Under the diagram, the teachers writes down the structure of the tense and contractions used.
At the end of this step students should be able to understand
o When we use this structure
o How it is formed (the verb to be + past participle)
o How we pronounce it (contractions)
At this point the instructor also reminds students that there’s certain vocabulary we use when writing emails like subject, attachment, recipient and sender. The teacher also discusses if we use formal or informal language in emails. The learners are asked to look at the handout again and find examples of informal language used. I would not introduce my students to a lot of new words at this point as the main focus of the lesson is grammar, but they will still need some of the vocabulary to complete free practice exercise.
Controlled practice (20-25min)
Task introduction: “Now you will work in small groups asking each other questions about current events happening in your life.
You are going to write down your partner’s answers on a paper and we will have one or two volunteers reading the answers to the class”.
Task debrief: Pull students together as a whole group and have one or two volunteers to talk about their partners. Correct any mistakes and ask students if they have any questions. Provide answers.
The teacher breaks students into groups where they are going to discuss the vents on their lives. Instructor checks-in with the groups and provides support when needed. The teacher assesses students’ answers in the form of comments. It is important that the teacher pays attention to the content of students’ answers and not just grammar “…what they choose to say is just as valuable as how they choose to say it” (Harmer, J, 2001, p. 101)
In assessment of students’ oral work, the teacher should be focusing on accuracy when checking students’ notes (“We need to make a clear difference between “non-communicative” and “communicative” activities; whereas the former are generally intended to ensure correctness, the latter are designed to improve language fluency” (Harmer, J. 2001, p.104)
Assessment and commenting will help the teacher to prepare appropriate materials for the next lesson.
For this activity it would be a good idea to put students in groups where they don’t know each other very well, this could make the task more motivational and bring an opportunity for students to know each other better.
Free practice (20 min)
“Imagine you have to write a quick email to your friend and tell him/her about some current events in your life. What would you say? How would you start your letter? How would you finish? What grammar structures would you use in it? Don’t forget to be polite and ask him/her about their life! Do you have any questions about the task?”
By the time of this assignment, the students are probably tired and less motivated, so I usually like to add a little motivation here telling them that their writing skills are applicable in many areas including personal and business fields and if they learn how to write correctly, they would be able to build a lot of productive relationships.
While students are working individually, the teacher has a chance to provide students with corrective feedback This is a great opportunity to provide some individual feedback to students in the form of commenting.
Follow up
The students are told that the lesson is almost over and if they have any questions, they can ask them now.
For homework, the students are asked to compose an answer to the email they have created utilizing the vocabulary and grammar rules from the lesson. The students should describe three events – past, present and future.
Writing an email is a creative task and “...when we give feedback on more creative or communicative writing (such as letters, reports, stories or poems) we will approach the task with circumspection and clearly demonstrate our interest in the content of the students’ work.” (Harmer, J. 2001, p. 109). The best approach is to do it by responding rather than assessing or evaluating.
The teacher could write: “I really enjoyed reading your email. You have used a lot of vocabulary on the topic… But I think it would be great to begin your email with some opening phrases like…"
After completing the assignment, I realized that the home assignment would be way more beneficial if the students were already familiar with usage of present progressive for future events. An alternative to that task could be asking students to only talk about past and present events and “extend” that task when they are familiar with using present progressive for future events.
References
1. Coelho, E. (2004). Chapter 4: No more red pen: Teaching English Grammar. In (Eds.). Adding English: A guide to teaching in multilingual classrooms (pp.67-89).
2. Form-focused Instruction, Chapter 22
3. Harmer, J. (2001). Chapter 7: Mistakes and feedback. In Harmer, J. (Eds.). The practice of English language teaching (pp. 99-104 & 109-113)
4. Rod, Ellis. “A typology of written corrective feedback types” ELT Journal, 2009-04, Vol.63 (2), p.97-107
5. Sikorzynska, A. (1995) Discover it yourself (pp.8-9&pp.82-85)
6. Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar, Chapter 2: Why teach grammar? Pp.21-27
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