W1A-011 ELT texts-0.txt
Sue Mullins 06/02/02

Task One:
a) The newspaper article in Extract A is simply used to present the topic of the lesson. (Time capsules and what we will be viewed as in the future). The 2 articles do not contain any examples of the grammar focus yet lead on nicely to the freer-speaking activity. Thus, the purpose of these articles is not to present any language in context, but to generate interest in the topic and to give the students examples of what has already been stored in capsules so that they can perform the freer-speaking activity with more back-ground

information and hopefully produce more output.
b) The letter is used to present the information needed for the dialogue in a more formal, written style. The students must then transform the information into a more informal, spoken style. The purpose of the letter in relation to ex. 1 is to get the students to think about appropriate language in varying contexts.

Task II
The focus of the grammar exercises in 4 is the first conditional, use and usage. It begins with only 2 example sentences in the box which, although related to the text, do not occur in context in the text. This gives it the appearance of a quite mechanical, deductive approach. However, the questions in 4.1 allow the students to work out the form and meaning in an inductive manner. These type of questions will promote students

understanding of the target language if they have worked it out themselves.
Ex. 4.1 concentrates on form as the students have to re-arrange the jumbled sentences. By focusing on the syntax of the first conditional, students should hopefully be able to produce the target language more effectively.

In Ex. 3, the focus is on differentiating the meaning of 'if' and 'when'. This gap-fill provides 'mini' contexts to get the students to focus not only on use (sentence syntax) but also on usage (in what contexts do we exchange 'if' for 'when')

Ex. 4 is a simple drill in which the pronunciation is already given. This could have been approached in a more inductive manner by asking the students to tell you what they hear and what sounds are elided.

Ex. 5 enables the students to practice the target structure in a controlled way before attempting the freer-speaking activity. The students have already worked on the form and meaning, and have heard models of the target languages. This is now their first chance to produce it and for the teacher to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

These exercises encompass a bottom-up approach and are quite inductive despite their appearance and lack of context.

TASK III

The pre-intermediate class I have in mind consists of 8 learners of mixed European nationalities and ages 17-40 +. They meet for only 4 hours per week yet are very keen, conscientious learners as they are mostly living and working (mostly au pairs) here in Belfast for up to one year.

I think the reading and all the exercises that go with it are very usable; the questions begin with reading for gist and then reading for more specific detail, cumulating in a word hunt (matching definitions). I would, however, introduce the topic through some pre-reading questions such as, "What has changed the most, in your opinion, between life now and life 100 years ago." I would also get students to look at the headings and pictures to try to get them to predict the context of the articles and to focus on the style of newspaper headings.

Grammar exercise 4, although good in its own right, does not flow from the reading as there are no examples of this in the text. The first conditional is also not apparent in the guiding questions of the speaking activity and so I would leave this out altogether and use it with another text that actually contains examples of the target language.

I would adapt the speaking activity slightly in that initially students work in pairs answering the questions in 5.1 but with a limited number of items (eg. 6) which the students must come to an agreement on. Firstly, however I would try to pair the students, so that the more mature ones (40 +) are working together as I think it could generate an interesting discussion on the values people of a different generation give to certain items.
