Lesson Plan

Topic: Teaching short and long vowels.
Language Skills: Listening and articulating.
Level: Pre-sessional students. (Level 2 students)
Number of students: 30 students
Time: One period (60 minutes)
Teaching Aids: Website-(i) www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation
(ii) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_q65KQTn3c


General objective: At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
- Learn how to produce the correct articulation of simple vowels.
- Recognize and differentiate between short and long vowels.
- Be aware of how the sounds of short and long vowels will affect
the meaning of words.

Specific Learning Outcome: At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. Articulate short and long vowels correctly.
2. Choose the correct answer between the homonym words in the exercises from the website.
3. Listen and list down words that contain short and long vowels on the white board with at least 10 correct words.

Evaluation
- Teacher listens to student’s articulation after they have practice among them in the second activity. Teacher evaluates their proficiency by listening to their articulation.
- The students show that they can distinguish homonym words by choosing the right answers from the exercises provided in the website.
- Happy Working Song: Students competency of listening skills is tested after they have listen and try to identify the words that contain short and long vowels by writing down the words on the board.
Session
Procedure
Set induction
(10 minutes)
Teacher greets the students and begins the class by asking
“Do you realize that how you pronounce the length of vowel in certain words will affect their meanings? Today you will learn that if vowels’ pronunciation is wrong, it will change the real meaning of words. For example, “I am full,” can be wrongly pronounced as “I am fool”.
Teacher introduces the lesson for today which is simple vowel that consists of short and long vowels by using the website. http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation
Teacher gives explanation on short and long vowels. The importance of pronouncing the vowels correctly is because there are words that share similar sound but have different meaning.
- Examples, full-fool, sick-seek, ship-sheep.

Activity 1
(10 minutes)
Teacher plays the clips from the website and leads the students to demonstrate the pronunciation of the simple vowels.
Students repeat the pronunciation of the vowels after the audio.
Students are asked to sit in groups of three and share one computer for each group.
Teacher asks the students to listen to the clip of short and long vowels from the website.
Students listen attentively to the pronunciation of the vowels from the clip; learn how specific vowels are pronounced and the place of articulations of each vowel.


Activity 2
(10 minutes)
Teacher instructs the students to listen to each other’s articulation and practice between themselves.
Students are asked to do the exercises from the website and check the answers from the website.
Teacher goes around and answers questions that students might have.
Teacher appoints few students to demonstrate the sounds of the simple vowels.

Activity 3
(20 minutes)
· Teacher plays video clips of the song entitled ‘Happy Working Song’ twice from YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_q65KQTn3c

· Each group is asked to listen and find at least 10 words that contain short and long vowels from the song.
Each group will write their findings of the words on their respective column made by the teacher on the white board.
Teacher opens the class for discussion whether the answers that have been written are correct or not.
At the end of the discussion, teacher provides the correct answer.

Activity 4
(10 minutes)

Teacher recaps on the lesson and comments on the students’ performance for today’s class.
Teacher encourages students to visit the website so that they can improve their articulation and practice the correct articulation in the authentic language environment.
In the next class, students will come out with the words that contain short and long vowels to recall, whether they understood the lesson.


Reflection

Being able to complete this lesson plan is a huge relieve as it was a very challenging task for us. It may look simple but believe us when we say, it is hard. A lot of unforgettable experiences were gained along the way of preparing this lesson plan. We admit that all these beneficial experiences are crucial in improving ourselves in various ways. First of all, this is the first time we were given the opportunity to create our own lesson plan. At first, we never thought the process would be very complicated after all. Hence, we didn’t really put enough effort into it. Fortunately enough for us, we did not take long to come to realize that this assignment should be attained seriously in order to come up with the best lesson plan that we could. So, here come our sleepless nights, headaches, and stomach pain (unusual but yes, we also got this in the process). However, now that we have gone through this situation, we realized that it is not easy to be a teacher and it makes us appreciate and respect our teachers more. The fact that the preparation of this lesson plan is time consuming, we also manage to learn how to plan and scheduled our time wisely. Last but not least, although it was hard for us to find the suitable website for our lesson plan, we did not give up. The search has really tested our level of patience and determination but we realized that learning using computer (website) makes the lesson more interesting.


Appendix :


Amy Adams - Happy Working Song Lyrics

All right everyone, time to tidy things up
Come my little friends
As we all sing a happy little working song
Merry little voices clear and strong
Come and roll your sleeves up
So that we can pitch in
Cleaning crud up in the kitchen
As we sing along
And you’ll trill a cheery tune in the tub
As we scrub a stubborn mildew stainLug a hairball from the shower drain
To the gay refrain
Of a happy working song
We’ll keep singing without fail
Otherwise we’d spoil it
Hosing down the garbage pail
And scrubbing up the toilet
Ooh!How we all enjoy letting loose with a little La-da-da-dum-dum
While we’re emptying the vacu-um
It’s such fun to hum
A happy working song
Oo-oohA happy working song
Oh, how strange a place to be
Till Edward comes for me
My heart is sighing
Still, as long as I am here
I guess a new experience
Could be worth trying
Hey! Keep drying!
You could do a lot when you got
Such a happy little tune to hum
While you’re sponging up the soapy scum
We adore each filthy chore
That we determine
So friends even though you’re vermin
We’re a happy working song
Singing as we fetch the detergent box
Or the smelly shirts and the stinky socks
Sing alongIf you cannot sing then hum along
As we’re finishing our happy working song!
Ah...wasn’t this fun?


Lesson Plan (Revised)


Topic: Teaching short and long vowels.
Language Skills: Listening and articulating.
Level: Pre-sessional students. (Level 2 students)
Number of students: 30 students
Time: One period (60 minutes)
Teaching Aids: Website- www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_q65KQTn3c



General objective:
- To teach the students to produce the correct articulation of simple vowel.
- To help the students recognize and differentiate between short and long vowels.
- To make the students aware how the sounds of short and long vowels will affect
the meaning of words.

Specific Learning Outcome: At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. Articulate short and long vowels correctly.
2. Identify homonyms in the exercises from the website.
3. Distinguish between short and long vowels.


Evaluation
- Teacher listens to student’s articulation after they have practice among them in the second activity. Teacher evaluates their proficiency by listening to their articulation.
- The students show that they understand the lesson by getting the right answers from the exercises provided in the website.


Set induction
(10 minutes)

-Teacher introduces the lesson for today which is simple vowel that consists of short and long vowels by using the website. http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation

-Teacher gives explanation on short and long vowels. The importance of pronouncing the vowels correctly is because there are words that share the similar sound but have different meaning.
- Examples, full-fool, sick-seek, ship-sheep.

Activity 1
(10 minutes)
-Teacher plays the clips from the website and leads the students to demonstrate the pronunciation of the simple vowels.
-Students repeat the pronunciation of the vowels after the audio.
-Students are asked to sit in groups of three and share one computer for each group.
-Teacher asks the students to listen to the clip of short and long vowels from the website.
-Students listen attentively to the pronunciation of the vowels from the clip; learn how specific vowels are pronounced and the place of articulations of each vowel.
-Teacher goes around assisting students should they have any problem regarding the task.

Activity 2
(10 minutes)
-Teacher instructs the students to listen to each other’s articulation and practice between themselves.
-Students are asked to do the exercises from the website and check the answers from the website.
-Teacher goes around and answers questions that students might have.
-Teacher appoints few students to demonstrate the sounds of the simple vowels.

Activity 3
(20 minutes)
-Teacher plays video clips of the song entitled ‘Happy Working Song’ from YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_q65KQTn3c

-Students will be provided with the lyric of the song.
-Each group is asked to listen and find short and long vowels from the song assisted by the lyric provided.
-Each group will write their findings of the words that contain short and long vowels on their respective column made by the teacher on the white board.
-Teacher opens the class for discussion.
-At the end of the discussion, teacher provides the correct answer.

Activity 4
(10 minutes)
-Teacher recaps on the lesson and comments on the students’ performance for today’s class.
-Teacher encourages students to visit the website so that they can improve their articulation and practice the correct articulation in the authentic language environment.
-In the next class, students will come out with the words that contain short and long vowels to recall, whether they understood the lesson.


Reflection

Along the way of preparing this lesson plan, we have gone through several memorable experiences and hardships. This is actually the first time we were given the opportunity to create a lesson plan. Our knowledge regarding this task was zero. We thought it was easy when first told to do it. However, we never thought the process will be so complicated. From this assignment, we learn how to do a good lesson plan. In addition, by doing this assignment, we realized that it is not easy for the teacher to teach us and we have to appreciate and respect our teachers. The assignment of doing this lesson plan is time consuming. However, we learn how to manage our time when doing this assignment. Another obstacle that we faced in completing this task is to find the suitable website for our lesson plan. At the end, we manage to find the suitable website and we realized that learning using computer (website) makes the lesson more interesting.


APPENDIX:

Amy Adams - Happy Working Song Lyrics

All right everyone, time to tidy things up
Come my little friends
As we all sing a happy little working song
Merry little voices clear and strong
Come and roll your sleeves up
So that we can pitch in
Cleaning crud up in the kitchen
As we sing along
And you’ll trill a cheery tune in the tub
As we scrub a stubborn mildew stain
Lug a hairball from the shower drain
To the gay refrain
Of a happy working song
We’ll keep singing without fail
Otherwise we’d spoil it
Hosing down the garbage pail
And scrubbing up the toilet
Ooh!How we all enjoy letting loose with a little
La-da-da-dum-dum
While we’re emptying the vacu-um
It’s such fun to hum
A happy working song
Oo-oohA happy working song
Oh, how strange a place to be
Till Edward comes for me
My heart is sighing
Still, as long as I am here
I guess a new experience
Could be worth trying
Hey! Keep drying!
You could do a lot when you got
Such a happy little tune to hum
While you’re sponging up the soapy scum
We adore each filthy chore
That we determine
So friends even though you’re vermin
We’re a happy working song
Singing as we fetch the detergent box
Or the smelly shirts and the stinky socks
Sing alongIf you cannot sing then hum along
As we’re finishing our happy working song!
Ah...wasn’t this fun?