Task 4: Comment on a teching idea found on the web
Teaching idea found on: 4teachers (download below)
This is a teaching idea for grade 6 to introduce the simple past. It is structured in five different parts; an introduction, a demonstration, a formulation, a practice part and a consolidation in the end. The plan of the lesson is very teacher-centered and the students only reproduce what the teacher tells them.
In the demonstration, the teacher introduces regular and irregular forms of the simple past by reading a short story to the students. It would be good to have the short story present to follow the lesson plan better. It is positive that different kinds of verbs, regular and irregular, are mentioned in the short story, but one is asking oneself if the students are able to get the simple past forms if this is supposed to be an introduction to the tense. As well, the chart with the “duration of different activities” is missing and one does not really know what to imagine there. Is it a time bar or another diagram? A positive aspect of this phase of the lesson is the collection of simple past forms on the board.
The step of formulation is not very precise, because “duration” of the teacher’s action is the issue, but “I ate an apple yesterday” is no statement about the duration, meaning how long it took to eat the apple, but a point of time in the past. This is very confusing, especially for the students. Also, ten minutes is very optimistic to plan with, especially when one wants to make sure that every student understands it.
The next step of the lesson is better, because the students are to practice the heard grammar structures by writing a diary entry. This is good to make sure the students can actually use the simple past. But there is no statement about checking the students work. If mistakes are made, the teacher does not correct them.
The consolidation is fixed on the board, with good ideas, for example the signal-words are mentioned, but the German formulation is not the best. It is good to have the example with a regular verb in English below, but even in grade 6 one should talk about subject and object and not about “committer” and “rest of sentence”. The last step of telling the students about irregular verbs, which they heard of earlier and practiced with them, is good, also the chart with a list of irregular verbs.
All in all is this teaching idea not the best. The introduction and development of the new tense should be more concentrated on the students and not only be presented by the teacher. The idea is full of mistakes, words are missing and also the materials mentioned in the teaching idea. I would not carry out this lesson in school, but do it differently: more student participation and practice.
This is a teaching idea for grade 6 to introduce the simple past. It is structured in five different parts; an introduction, a demonstration, a formulation, a practice part and a consolidation in the end. The plan of the lesson is very teacher-centered and the students only reproduce what the teacher tells them.
In the demonstration, the teacher introduces regular and irregular forms of the simple past by reading a short story to the students. It would be good to have the short story present to follow the lesson plan better. It is positive that different kinds of verbs, regular and irregular, are mentioned in the short story, but one is asking oneself if the students are able to get the simple past forms if this is supposed to be an introduction to the tense. As well, the chart with the “duration of different activities” is missing and one does not really know what to imagine there. Is it a time bar or another diagram? A positive aspect of this phase of the lesson is the collection of simple past forms on the board.
The step of formulation is not very precise, because “duration” of the teacher’s action is the issue, but “I ate an apple yesterday” is no statement about the duration, meaning how long it took to eat the apple, but a point of time in the past. This is very confusing, especially for the students. Also, ten minutes is very optimistic to plan with, especially when one wants to make sure that every student understands it.
The next step of the lesson is better, because the students are to practice the heard grammar structures by writing a diary entry. This is good to make sure the students can actually use the simple past. But there is no statement about checking the students work. If mistakes are made, the teacher does not correct them.
The consolidation is fixed on the board, with good ideas, for example the signal-words are mentioned, but the German formulation is not the best. It is good to have the example with a regular verb in English below, but even in grade 6 one should talk about subject and object and not about “committer” and “rest of sentence”. The last step of telling the students about irregular verbs, which they heard of earlier and practiced with them, is good, also the chart with a list of irregular verbs.
All in all is this teaching idea not the best. The introduction and development of the new tense should be more concentrated on the students and not only be presented by the teacher. The idea is full of mistakes, words are missing and also the materials mentioned in the teaching idea. I would not carry out this lesson in school, but do it differently: more student participation and practice.
| Teaching Idea found on 4teachers.de |
