Dr. t. lee
Grade 6 Hobbies: Grammar in Conversation –
Adjectives that end in –ing and –ed Lesson
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Lesson Introduction
The purpose of a grammar in conversation lesson is to provide students with multiple opportunities to authentically apply grammar and syntax rules to their spoken language. As presented in the English World text, this lesson lacked sufficient prior knowledge for English Language Learners so I added in the components of explaining the definition of hobbies and providing multiple examples of hobbies that people might enjoy. I also added in significant structured activities and procedures that made the lesson organization and expectations clearer to students. Details of the instructional context are contained in the Hobbies: Grammar in Conversation – Adjectives that end in –ing and –ed Lesson PowerPoint.
A pilot of this lesson was run with grade 6a students. Improvements between the pilot lesson and the one featured in this portfolio include the addition of explicit teacher modeling of all sentence structures and a model for the interview portion of the lesson that included a teacher demonstration of how students should report their interview findings.
Lesson PowerPoint
Figure 20 contains the instructional PowerPoint used in this lesson.
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Advance by clicking on the slides.
Figure 20. Grade 6 Hobbies: Grammar in Conversation – Adjectives that end in –ing and –ed PowerPoint.
Teaching in Action
In this section, some of the activities contained in this lesson are presented:
Lesson Audio Files
Figures 21-23 are audio files of the lesson in action.
Click the play button to begin playing the audio files.
· Figure 21 contains an excerpt of the students presenting their sentences with adjectives that end in –ed:
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the Play button to hear the file.
Figure 21. Grade 6b audio file of hobbies lesson in action – adjectives that end in –ed.
· Figure 22 contains an excerpt of the students presenting their sentences with adjectives that end in –ing:
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the Play button to hear the file.
Figure 22. Grade 6b audio file of hobbies lesson in action – adjectives that end in –ing.
· Figure 23 contains an excerpt of students reporting the results of their classmate interviews about hobbies:
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Figure 23. Grade 6b audio file of hobbies lesson interview report.
During this lesson, individualized feedback was provided to students. Even when students did not meet the stated objectives, they were encouraged to revise and given additional opportunities to present. The expectation is that every student is capable of meeting the learning objectives.
Lesson Homework Feedback
It is essential that students gain additional independent practice of materials covered in the classroom setting. It is also important that teachers provide timely feedback to students about their independent performance. Figure 24 is an example of feedback provided to a student on the homework assignment for this lesson:
Figure 24. Grade 6 grammar in conversation homework feedback.
Connections to my Teaching Philosophy
This lesson reflects components 2-7 of my Teaching Philosophy. This student-centered lesson is directly connected to my teaching philosophy because it is dialogue based and highly structured in its format. A variety of listening, writing, reading, and speaking activities were included in this lesson that engage students in every domain of language development.
Assessment of Student Learning
Because every student presented at least twice during this lesson, I was able to provide every learner with instant, individualized assistance with their language acquisition and achieve the stated lesson objectives. Student performance on the homework assignment from the workbook also indicated that the lesson was successful because students who completed the assignment on average scored 85-93%.
Assessment of Teaching
Student surveys were administered so that the students could provide their assessment of my teaching. These surveys were the first that the grade 6 students had ever been asked to take. A survey was also provided to my co-teacher to solicit their input about my teaching.
Student Feedback
Figure 25 provides examples of completed surveys and Figures 26-28 provide summaries of the student survey results. Students unanimously agreed that this lesson taught them more about using grammar in conversation and they all enjoyed interviewing a classmate. While some students did not enjoy individually presenting their sentences, the vast majority did enjoy it. The preference for interactive dialogue as opposed to individual presentations may be reflective of Georgian collectivist culture and the enjoyment of interacting/collaborating with others more than the presentation of individual scholarship. Qualitative lesson accolades from the surveys included: “I liked my teacher and I like grammar, also I liked conversation and grammar. This lesson is interesting.” Students in general are excited to practice speaking English and enjoy engaging in structured conversation; however these strategies require excellent classroom management foundations for successful implementation. Qualitative lesson improvements from the surveys included: “I don’t like how we were sitting,” and “I can’t speak English very good.” These comments reflect the students’ growing comfort level with having flexible seating arrangements that change with instructional activities and becoming more comfortable speaking in class instead of the more commonplace activity of just passively listening to one student recite material. In future lessons there is a need for the teacher to fully explain the rationale for the seating arrangement in order to increase student levels of comfort with the change. The students are enthusiastic about speaking to one another and opportunities to present their perspectives to others and listen to multiple perspectives.
Figure 25. Grade 6 hobbies lesson examples of completed student surveys.
Figure 26. “This lesson helped me learn more about using adjectives ending in -ing and -ed in conversation” - grade 6 hobbies lesson student survey
Figure 27. “I enjoyed sharing my sentences with my classmates”- grade 6 hobbies lesson student survey
Figure 28. “I liked interviewing a classmate about their hobbies”- grade 6 hobbies lesson student survey
Co-teacher Feedback
Figure 29 provides my co-teacher’s feedback to me about the hobbies lesson. My co-teacher strongly agreed that students learned about adjectives ending in –ing and –ed and that I modeled proper English pronunciation for them as needed. While my co-teacher agreed that every student spoke in English more than once, she was undecided about whether every student spoke more than once during the lesson. Qualitative feedback from my co-teacher included: “I liked your teaching style.”
Figure 29. Co-teacher survey for grade 6b hobbies lesson.