Speaking (using newspaper headlines)
Intermediate B1 level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To provide accuracy speaking practice in a group talk in the context of news
Subsidiary Aims
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To provide gist and scan reading practice using a text about news
Procedure (24-42 minutes)
Teacher tries to generate interest in the speaking task by the help of newspaper headlines attached on the board. Each headline includes a blocking word that students will later encounter in their paragraphs. He/she also tries to make a connection between the topic and students' own lives.
Teacher tries to extract some related information and key words which will be needed for understanding the paragraphs from newspaper. Teacher has already used the blocking vocabularies in the headlines without them being directly informed. So she/he can introduce the words and help them with their meanings. In this step teacher first asks if they know any of the words and if not she/he explains them. A pronunciation part follows this step to provide an oral practice of the new words.
Teacher tells students that they are going to read three different paragraphs. Then s/he divides the class into three groups of 4 or 5 and asks them to sit in round shape. From now on teacher should give more detailed and clear instructions to avoid further confusions. Meanwhile teacher picks headlines from w/b leaving on the three headlines and then gives each group a paragraph and asks them to read their paragraph to find a title which suites their paragraph best from the board.
In this stage, teacher gives each group questions to check if they have understood specific parts of their paragraphs. Each group is supposed to select a secretary and help him/her in a way that she/he will be able to explain their own paragraph to other groups. Teacher keeps monitoring and helping students when necessary.
Having finished their reading tasks, the secretary of each group is supposed to explain different information mentioned in their paragraph and meanwhile teacher asks related questions to have a whole class feedback and to check if the other groups have grabbed the concept.
Since all the groups know what other paragraphs are about, teacher rearranges the groups by changing some of their members. This time teacher writes three questions on the board and wants students to work together to produce sentences using the grammatical point they have already been presented. They are free to take notes and teacher also monitors to take notes and help them with their errors. In the following part each group mentions their ideas and finally whole class decides on the best solution for the problem. The lesson ends with a general feedback reminding their own answers with the second conditional sentences.