Determiners & Politeness
- Ning'ou Qu
- Dec 16, 2019
- 6 min read
Theme: Art and Creativity
Materials & Technology:
Textbook: Life 5 Unit 4 pp. 50, 52-53
Other materials: PowerPoint (click to access the material)
Teacher: Ningou Qu
Level: Upper-Intermediate 1
Goals:
Summarize findings with determiners
Find polite ways to point out and correct others' mistakes
Write an online personalized review of something they want to recommend
Objectives (SWBAT):
Students Will Be Able To…
use determiners appropriately to summarize findings
correct others in a polite way
personalize their writing
Language focus and Meaningful output – Determiners, Speaking
1.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-S
● Clarify the differences between “both”, “either”, and “neither” with a imaginary scenario:
Let’s say Jack and Mary are two students in our class. Jack likes English. Mary likes English. So, we can say? ----Both students/ Both Jack and Mary/ Both of them like English.
Good students, Jack and Mary! However, one of them will be absent from our class on Dec 2nd and will miss the final exam. We don’t know which one of them cannot come. So, we can only say… -----Either Jack or Mary cannot take the exam. Right? There are two possibilities. We use “either… or…” to indicate the two possibilities.
Then, the teacher offered two options: you can choose to take either a makeup test or an online test. -----Either way, you need to finish it within 40 minutes.
The test result turns out to be good. So, we can say...------Both students/ both of them pass the exam. Or, neither of them/ neither student fail the exam.
1.2. During Stage:
Interaction: T-S, S-S, S-S, S-S, T-S
● Briefly introduce the activity to students
Ok, now it’s time for us to do a little practice. I have four questions to ask you. Don’t be nervous. Those are all Yes/ No questions based on your experience.
First, I’ll group you up with the random team generator. Alright. Find your group members. Group one please come to this corner. Group two, this corner. Group three..four..five..
● Step 1: Students work in pairs or groups of three, answer questions on the board
Give each group a marker to write down their names on the board.
Give modeling with an example question: Here’s an example of how to do it. For example, if the question is: Do you live in Manhattan? I want one group member of each group takes the marker, and the other people in the group tell her the answer, Yes or No. And the person has the marker write down the answers with Y or N. So, you will write something like this: YYY, NNN, YYN. Remember to write down the number for each answer. Are you clear?
Show the four questions on the slide. Read aloud in class and ask students to write down their answers as quickly as possible
Q1: Do you usually come to TC by subway?
Q2: Have you ever had lunch at TC dining hall?
Q3: Are you going home after this class?
Q4: Did you go to a comedy show last night?
● Step 2: Students move clockwise to the next station and come up with sentences with determiners based on the other group’s result.
Signal students to rotate: Are you finished? Great. Now all of you move clockwise to the next station. Group 1 moves to group 2’s place.
Give instructions and modeling: This time, I want you to come up with sentences with determiners based on the other group’s result. For the example question, if the answer is YYY, how can you summarize this result? You can say, "All students in this group live in Manhattan". Or, "Every student in this group lives in Manhattan". Each group has given four answers to the four questions. So, try to come up with as many sentences as possible to summarize the results.
Ask Comprehension Check Questions (CCQs): Are you clear? What element/ What words should be included in your summary sentences? Determiners. Make sure your sentences are clear and correct.
Students come up with their summaries with determiners
● Step 3: Students move clockwise again and check the correctness of the sentences the other group has made
Signal students to rotate: OK. Time’s up! Now, move clockwise again to the next station!
Give instructions: This time, your job is to check the correctness of the sentences the other group has made. What should you focus on? You can check the appropriateness of the use of determiners, or the correctness of singular/ plural/ noncount nouns, and verbs as well. We learned present, past, and future forms in previous units, so take this chance to see whether you are able to use them correctly. If you find something wrong, you can make corrections. If there’s nothing to correct, draw a smiley face.
Students check whether the sentences are correct and appropriate in terms of the use of determiners and tenses
● Step 4: Prepare for the report: Discuss how to make corrections in a polite way
Draw students' attention to "politeness" with a negative example: Before you give feedback to the other group, let’s think about some strategies of correcting someone’s mistake. How would you feel if I say, “Your sentence is wrong! It is blah blah blah NOT blah blah…” No one likes direct, negative feedback. We need to be considerate and careful when pointing out others’ mistakes, do you agree? So, how can you make someone feel less embarrassed when you correct their mistakes? Any suggestions?
Elicit expressions and strategies from students, then summarize their answers: Right. Instead of saying, “You made a mistake. This sentence is wrong.” You can start with something positive, something they did well. Also, when you point out something wrong, you can soften your tone and say “I’m not sure but I think this sentence should/ could be changed into...” “I think there might be something wrong with the … My advice is to …” “You did a great work in … but I’m afraid there’s … in terms of …”
1.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: S-S, T-S
● Step 5: Students give feedback to their classmates’ sentences
OK. Let’s start from this group. Read the original sentences first, and make your comments. If you want to make any corrections, you should be polite, and give your reasons for correcting them. If you have nothing to correct, then you can praise the other group with your biggest compliments.
● Check if students’ mistakes are all corrected
● Students' Reflection
Are you all clear about how to use determiners?
Can you correct others in a polite way?
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Tangible outcome:
Sentences and corrections on the white board
Feedback:
Students give peer feedback to their classmates sentences (focusing on the appropriateness of determiners and the correctness of the noun and verb)
Teacher gives delayed feedback at the end of each group's report and final feedback at the end of the activity
Input and Meaningful output –
Personalized Writing
2.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-S
● Give students two similar paragraphs to read and compare. All the differences are underlined in the text.
Read these two short paragraphs with your partner. Compare the one on the right with the one on the left, and discuss what these two paragraphs are talking about, and how these two paragraphs are different.
● Check students’ understanding of the reading and their conclusion of the comparison
So, what are they talking about? Right, a comedy show. It’s a review, or a reflection of a comedy show this author saw. Can you summarize some of the differences between the left and the right paragraph? Which one is more casual, how can you tell? Right, the one on the right is more casual and informal. It uses conversational linking phrases, contracted forms, and phrasal verbs. What else? More active verbs, have you noticed this? So, how do you feel about the paragraph on the right. If one is personal, one is impersonal, which one do you think is the personal one?
2.2 During Stage:
Interaction: T-S, S-S
● Students look at the picture on textbook p.53 and read the review.
Today we’re going to learn how to write personalized reviews. Turn to page 53. There’s a picture.
Read and think: what information about the event does the author include? Is the tone of the review personal or impersonal?
● Discuss the writing skills of personalization
So, as we’ve said, personal tone uses pronouns like “I, we, and you” with a lot of personal feelings. You can also find a lot of active verbs, contracted forms, phrasal verbs, as well as conversational linking phrases like “what’s more” in personal wirings. Those features make your writing more casual and give your readers a sense of friendliness.
● Students find a picture they took at an event/ place and share their stories
Now, please take out your phone and go to your album or your social media account. Find a picture you took at an event or a place that you’d like to recommend others to go and visit… Has everyone found a photo? Good. Now, share your experience of visiting that place or participating in that event. What information do you need to include? When and where, how you felt about it, why you want to recommend it.
● Write a personalized review of the event/ place
Now take a few minutes to write a short, personalized review. You can use the expressions from 4d to express personal feelings and attitudes.
2.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: T-S
● Read through the checklist and exchange writings, give peer feedback.
Here is a checklist for you to do the peer review. Read through the checklist and exchange your writing. Comment on your partner’s writing and share your thoughts.
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Tangible outcome: Writing
Feedback: Students give peer feedback after the writing
Thanks for reading! Post your thoughts and let me know how do you think of this activity :)
Comments