Coordinator: Jafar Dorri
Email: Jafar_dorri@yahoo.com
Guidelines for Publishing in My Contribution
The column entitled My Contribution is a recent initiative which is intended to be a forum for sharing lesson plans and procedures for classroom activities. Our assumption is that all teachers have original ideas for running their lessons which work for them. We welcome a contribution which reflects an original idea. Ideas taken from teachers’ guides can be of no help unless they are sufficiently modified. The sign of an original idea is that it is a source of excitement and pride to the originator to the extent that he/she would like to tell others how it works. You can imagine yourself telling your colleague in a very simple clear language how you carry out the activity in your class in a stepwise manner. As your account is procedural it follows a certain structure which is different from the structure of a research article. The column includes instructions which tell the reader how to carry out the teaching activities like the ones one can find in a recipe. In some cases specially in the conclusion part you might want to provide a rationale for the activity by referring to the literature but this needs to be kept at a minimum.
It should be noted that a lesson plan is the blueprint of those teaching activities that are to be done in the classroom to teach the textbook content with the aim of achieving its objectives. Every teacher tries to plan the content in his/her own style so that he/she can teach systematically and effectively. You can see the detailed guidelines for writing My Contribution in in the box below.
Your “My Contribution” should include:
- A title, your name, affiliation, and email address;
- A “Quick guide” to the activity or teaching technique;
- No more than 700 words excluding the appendixes;
- An introduction (i.e. overview) followed by preparation and procedure steps and a conclusion.
It should be:
- In Microsoft Word format;
- Double-spaced with an extra space between sections.
Quick guide
Key Words: post reading activity, fluency practice, role-play, dramatization
Proficiency level: grade 10 and above
Preparation time: 5 – 10 minutes for giving instructions and explaining the task
Activity time: 30 - 45 minutes
Materials: Students’ course book, board, marker
Introduction
Post reading is either ignored in English classes or reading aloud or vocabulary and grammar practice which is necessary but not enough. What I am going to introduce here is a post reading task which engages students fully in terms of speaking fluency, role-play, and dramatization of the reading text. In this post-reading task, based on the content and purpose of the passage, students will be given different roles to play. For instance, one person will be a reporter to report the message of the passage to his/her audience. Another student might be one of the characters in the text and will be asked to narrate the text to his/her classmates. Even students can be put in groups of two or more to practice and do a role-play task based on the content and message of the reading text. The lesson procedure presented below is based on the reading text entitled: “Endangered Animals” on page 22, grade 10.
Procedure
Step 1: After all the pre-reading (brain-storming, guessing/predicting the content of the passage, etc.) and while reading tasks (skimming, scanning, guessing the meaning of the new words from the context, etc.), it is time for a communicative task in the post reading phase of the reading lesson. Students are put in groups of four or five (depending on the number of the students).
Step 2: Each group will be assigned a role. For example, group A will be TV reporters, group B will be environment guards and protectors, group C will be police officers, group D will be family members of the guards, group E will be endangered animals, etc.
Step 3: After assigning or naming the groups, each group will be instructed to form a discussion group with the aim of making a conversation/report based on its title. For instance, the police group will report the message of the text as if a police officer is warning the hunters of endangered animals. The endangered animals group will talk to human beings as if the animals are talking and complaining about how they are treated in the nature and so on with other groups. This process might take 15 – 20 minutes since students are preparing themselves for a conversation or talk for the rest of the class.
Step 4: Each group will select a representative as if it is a talk or will select two candidates to do a role play before the class. Students perform or give a talk followed by the teacher’s comments. The group will be evaluated and praised for their performance.
An important factor here is teacher’s monitoring. The teacher monitors students’ group work and provides help and assistance where necessary. S/he also makes a list of students’ mistakes for a delayed-feedback.
Conclusion
This post-reading task helps students to practice fluency and have fun. It also helps them experience working in groups and doing a role play. Based on the context, also, the importance of protecting the environment will be accentuated.