Course paper on the theme: difficulties in teaching writing to a1 learners

What types of restaurants are popular in your area?
What ethnic foods are you into?
How often do you eat out?
Who do you usually eat out with?
What was your last dining experience like?
How do you feel about fast food?
What restaurants do you like to frequent?
Notice we didn’t go straight to the punch with: “What’s your favorite restaurant?” That’s pretty much a beginner-level question. Try getting creative with your questions. Lead them down a path of new words. Scaffold from what they know to where they want to go.Ideally, these questions would be given to pairs who would converse. If that isn’t possible, create a two-way exchange between yourself and the class members rather than the typical one-way, interview-type conversations we’re all familiar with. The ultimate idea is to let this thing take off while you are free to observe areas for feedback after.
3. Role Play
Beginners are typically not ready for role play. They simply lack the structure and vocabulary for it. Learners at the advanced levels are capable of free-thinking types of exercises such as debate, discussion, news reports, and reading or watching then paraphrasing. Learners at the intermediate level can benefit from the integration of structure and free-speaking – role play. Today’s lesson will be ‘eating out.’Prepare a context for your learners. For this lesson, let’s say, deciding what to eat when eating out with a friend. Now, if you’ve been using the previous sample lessons for one lesson or as modules, students will likely be warmed up for this activity.Break them into teams with a server and two friends then game on! Observe and be ready to give assistance and or feedback. But try not to interrupt if at all possible. Let them work through it first.Changing topics of role play offer learners opportunities to use English in different contexts. And in the end, that’s the “fishing” element of communicative language teaching.
Wrap Up
You may have noticed that each of the sample lessons above revolved around a common topic: eating out. That means, just as with our previous blog for beginners, you can use abbreviated versions of these together, sequentially, in one meeting. Or you can use them as modules for separate class meetings to reinforce communication proficiency.These sample lessons offer clearer ideas of how to apply the Communicative Approach in lessons. Not only that, these samples present how you can work one exercise into another in one class or a few.