Task A: Gist reading

It is very intensive!

It varies the skills that students need to answer the questions

Many answers could naturally prompt discussion and facilitate follow-up reference questioning

The ‘not sure’ option is a good indicator for the teacher during monitoring

Part 3

This writing task would be a follow-up activity to the previous receptive skills (a lesson sub-aim). I have chosen to do a writing task here as a) the students get far more speaking practice than writing in follow-up/freer stages, and b) they have exhibited a weaker ability in this skill area during previous tasks.

The procedure would be:

Students work in pairs. First, they should think together about something crazy that they might do in their sleep (1 min). Then, they should create one story similar to that modelled in the text.

The teacher can assist the students by drawing attention to the first person form, and also clarifying the possible content of the writing (by drawing attention to parts of the text briefly) and reinforcing the need for clear presentation.

The students will have 8 minutes to write. They will display their work around the room (6 x pairs). They will then read each others work. They will discuss with their partner which piece they think was the most interesting story during OCFB, along with which character they would least like to be (these are the communicative goals behind writing the texts)

This activity would probably be a form of ‘process writing’ (Scrivener, 2011:235). This class do love being creative, and this task gives them opportunity to do so. Furthermore, the task is still contextually relevant, and uses the authentic material as a loose model for what is required. Students work in pairs to lower the affective filter. As this is a follow up activity, the students aren’t required to use specific form/content in their writing.

I do some crazy things in my sleep! Once, _______________________________________________

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Bibliography

Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of Language Teaching. Longman

Riddell, D. (2003). Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Hodder Education

Scrivener, J. (2011) Learning Teaching (Third Edition). Macmillan

Appendix: Detailed task Questions and answers

Read the text. Answer the statements with TRUE, FALSE or NOT SURE

1. 
   Nichola likes eating bread in her sleep