E accomplishment and failure

LESSON PLAN

Accomplishment and Failure

A. FACTUAL INFORMATION

• My name: Hui Ling Yang

• Day, date, and time of lesson: Thursday, February 19, 2015, 8:30-9:45

• Grade and level of students: regular secondary 3, advanced level

• Brief description of students: students of a science group, well disciplined, coming from

various linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

B. OBJECTIVES AND PROBLEMS

• Topic area/theme: accomplishment and failure

• General aim: The goal of the lesson is to create opportunities for students to practice

English in a meaningful way through oral interaction and reading. It also aims to help students

develop personalities of perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity.

• Specific objective(s): By the end of this lesson, the learners will be able to express opinions

related to accomplishment and failure with arguments supported by personal experiences.

They will also be able to negotiate the methods of dealing with failure. In addition, they will

be able to have conversations with basic vocabulary of equitation.

• Evaluation criteria: Competency 1 Interact orally will be evaluated, and the evaluation focus

is participation and pertinence. The teacher will be moving around in the classroom to

evaluate students during their discussion time.

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• Related content/essential knowledge:

– Functions: agreement, disagreement, opinions

– Grammar/structure: the Present Simple tense, the Past tense, the Modals

– Vocabulary: sports (equitation), personality, health and well-being,

– Anticipated language: I think that…Do you agree? I agree with you. I can’t agree with

you. In my opinion… We should…You have to… You need to…

• Anticipated problems and solutions: Students may switch back to L1. The teacher will

supervise and remind students to use English only. Students may have difficulty using the

concept graphic organizer- placemat. The teacher will teach and model how to use it.

C. COMPETENCIES COVERED

• ESL-specific:

Competency #1: Interacts orally in English. Students negotiate in groups and using problem

solving skills to complete the task.

- Key Features: engages in oral interaction, constructs meaning of the message

Competency #2: Reinvests understanding of texts

- Key Features: constructs meaning of texts, carries out a reinvestment task

• Cross-Curricular: Competency #2 – Solves problems.

Competency # 3- Exercises critical judgment.

Competency #7 – Achieve his or her potential

Competency #8 – Cooperates with others.

Competency #9 – Communicates appropriately

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D. MATERIALS AND AIDS

• Textbook: Viewpoint by Angelo Georgakatos

• Multimedia: smartboard, computer, the Internet, PowerPoint

• Handouts: the equitation vocabulary worksheets A+ B (Appendix 1)

the concept graphic organizer – placemat ( Appendix 2)

E. STRUCTURE OF THE LESSON

ActivityAnd

TimingWhat the teacher does? What the students do? Rational

HOOK

5

MINUTES

1. Before the students come to the

class, the teacher puts the poster

of Chinese New Year on the

smartboard. After the bell rings,

the teacher introduces the

Chinese New Year and

expresses New Year wishes to

students in Chinese. The teacher

explains the meaning s of the

wishes.

2. The teacher introduces the

Chinese zodiac sign and

explains why the horse is not the

first animal.

Students repeat the

Chinese New Year

wishes.

To create a warm

and positive

environment.

To raise students’

awareness of world

cultures.

To bring in the

concept of failure

DEVELOP-MENT

1. The teacher plays the video for Students work in groups To relate students

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3

10

Minutes

15

Minutes

the students : 10 Successful

People Who Failed at First

https://www.youtube.com/watch

?v=jeeX9N3Qhlk . She asks

students about the message of

the video. She reminds students

that there are also many people

who never make it to success

after failures. She asks students

to discuss if they believe that

failure is the mother of success.

She explains the evaluation

criteria for C1which focus on

participation and pertinence for

this class. She evaluates C1.

2. The teacher organizes the split

information activity which is

called Listen and Identify for

students to learn vocabulary

about equestrian. She distributes

the worksheets A and B which

contain the same picture but

different words (Appendix 1).

of four to discuss

whether they agree or

disagree and explain

why with 2 arguments.

Students work in pairs.

Students cannot see each

other’s worksheet. When

one student describes the

vocabulary on his/her

sheet, the other student

listens and identifies the

objects being described

to the previous

lesson about

influential people

and their

accomplishments.

To help students

practice making

critical judgment.

To create

opportunity for

students to interact.

To prepare students

for the reading

task.

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4

20

Minutes

She distributes dictionaries to

students in need.

She also asks students to learn

the four gaits of horse with the

help of dictionaries.

She checks the answers with the

whole class.

3. The teacher introduces the poem

describing a moment of

accomplishment of a teenager

girl. She asks students to read

the poem and highlights the

passages that they can

personally relate to.

She asks students to answer

reading comprehension

questions.

4. The teacher asks students to talk

about experiences of personal

failure. She evaluates C1.

5. The teacher asks students to

on his or her worksheet.

Students number the

speeds of horse gaits.

Students read the poem

individually

Students discuss in pairs.

Students work in groups

To develop

students’ reading

skills.

To create an

opportunity for

students to show

vulnerability and

build connection.

To encourage

5

5

20

minutes

work in groups of 4 to solve the

problem of how to deal with

failure.

She models how to use the

concept graphic organizer –

placemat- to structure their

discussions (Appendix 2).

She evaluates C1.

of 4 with the placemat.

They share their

solutions with the class

after discussion.

student cooperative

learning.

To scaffold

students’ learning.

CLOSURE

5

MINUTES

1. The teacher wraps up the class

by sharing the quote- I’ll never

lose. I either win or learn.

2. The teacher assigns homework:

write a poem about what really

matters.

To emphasize the

value of

perseverance and

resilience.

Appendix-1

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Appendix-2

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Reflection on the Lesson Accomplishment and Failure

Lesson description

The topic of this lesson was accomplishment and failure. The goal of the lesson is to create

opportunities for students to practice English in a meaningful way through oral interaction and

reading. It also aimed to help students develop personalities like perseverance and resilience in

the face of adversity. The learners were expected to be able to express opinions related to

accomplishment and failure with arguments supported by personal experiences, negotiate the

methods of dealing with failure and have conversations with basic vocabulary of equitation by

the end of this lesson.

Given the teaching situation, was the plan realistic?

The lesson plan was realistic, given the English level of the students and their compliance with

discipline. This lesson was given to a group of 32 Secondary 3 students in core ESL program.

Some students are Anglophone, and the majority of students are advanced in all four skills of

English. Therefore, the learning content about accomplishment and failure was not too difficult

for most students. I had no classroom management concern with this group as the students were

very well disciplined, so it was feasible to carry out several group activities. The teaching

situation enabled me to follow the lesson plan as intended.

What could/should I have anticipated?

I could have planned to use the video clip The 10 Successful People Who Failed First better.

This clip was used as a hook to connect the students to the learning content about success

and failure. The students were really paying attention to the video. I should have asked the

students more questions about the people in the video, for example, “Who do you recognize

in this video? What do you know about this person?” to provoke them to think and express

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themselves in the target language.

I should have anticipated that strong students would finish the work of the reading activity

fast. I should have planned extra challenging work for these students, for example, creating

quotes or writing poems about success and failure, to avoid that they had free off-task time.

If it were a class with discipline problems like my other groups, the free off-task time would

have been perfect for chaos. I should consider how to meet the needs of different students

when planning lessons in the future to help individual students to reach their own potentials.

What did I do that worked well?

What worked the best in this class was cooperative learning. I provided 4 opportunities for

the students to do pair or group work, so they got to interact with each other a lot in the

target language. First, it was a group activity where the students shared different opinions

about the saying that failure is the mother of success. After, it was a split information activity

in which the students worked in pairs to negotiate the meanings of vocabulary about

equitation. Then, the students shared their experiences of failure in pairs. At the end, the

students worked in groups of 4 to carry out a place mat activity to solve the problem of how

to deal with failure. These four activities allowed the students to learn cooperatively from

each other for about 55 minutes out of a 75-minute period, and the students all participated

in the activities very actively. In other words, not only the cooperative learning structures

were there but also the students benefited from the structures.

Instead of explaining what to do, I modelled activities before the students start to do work in

order that they could understand instructions well. It was the students’ first time doing the

split information activity. I invited one student to work with me to demonstrate how to do it.

After the demonstration, I also checked the students’ comprehension of the activity

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instruction. I then circulated in the classroom after the students started to work to provide

help if needed. I noticed that there was only one pair that didn’t fully understand what to do.

I did the same things with the place mat activity. Modelling activities greatly helped me to

keep my students on the right track.

I integrated Chinese culture into this lesson, which enriched the students’ knowledge of

world cultures as well as helped me build my identity. It was a coincidence that this lesson

was given on the day of the Chinese New Year. At the beginning of the class, I gave the

students the best wishes of the Chinese New Year in Mandarin and made them repeat the

best wishes. I also introduced the Chinese zodiac to the students. By incorporating Chinese

culture, I definitely got all students’ attention and set their minds ready for the class.

I managed to open up the students for sharing their personal failure experiences by giving

my own anecdote. I find that students are always interested in knowing about teachers. We

can use anecdotes about ourselves which don’t necessarily have to be true to feed their

curiosity once in a while. I feel that on top of getting students interested to learn, this

technique also helps teachers to bond with students.

What do I still need to work on?

I spoke too fast. I usually talk fast, and I was talking even faster in this class because I was

nervous about being filmed. I need to keep in mind that I teach ESL learners. My high

speech speed is not a big problem for this class as the students are at an advanced level. It

might even stimulate the students more since they have to pay more attention to what I say.

However, I also teach students at lower English levels who wouldn’t be able to follow me as

well as this group. I need to talk more slowly in general and adapt my speech speed to

weaker students.

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How effective was my teaching overall?

Overall, my teaching in this class was effective. All students participated in the learning

activities, and the majority of them did good jobs with their work. At the end of the class, all

teaching objectives were met. The most important is that both I and the students enjoyed this

lesson.

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