Life 4, Unit 7: Living Space
- Ning'ou Qu
- May 6, 2019
- 8 min read
Updated: May 7, 2019
Theme: Living Space
Materials & Technology:
● Textbook: Life 4 Unit 7 pp. 81-83
● Other materials: PowerPoint, worksheet, poster
Teacher/s: Ningou Qu & Haoyue Dong
Level: Intermediate 2
Date/Time: Mar 6, 9-11am
Goal:
Learn comparatives and superlatives
Give presentations about cities of future
Talk about your own homes
Objectives (SWBAT):
Students Will Be Able To…
1. form comparatives and superlatives correctly
2. use comparatives and superlatives to compare things and explain preferences
3. talk about four aspects (population, economic activity, quality of life, transport) of future cities
4. use various words to describe a house or an apartment
ACTIVITY/PROCEDURE/STAGE – INTERACTION TYPES
Preview: Warm up
Interaction: T-Ss, then S-S
● Ask students to look at the photo and describe what they see, then answer the questions on the textbook.
● Ask students to share their experience of living arrangements
Linking & Transitioning to rest of lesson:
● Are you currently living in a house or an apartment?
● What do you have in your home? Share with your partner.
e.g. It has a large balcony.
Any unusual features of your house?
Activity 1: e.g. Meaningful input – Listening Comprehension (Ning’ou)
1.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, then S-S
● Show pictures on the screen, ask students if they can identify the house-related words in the picture.
● Which features are important in your homes? Can you rank them in the order of importance?
1.2. During Stage:
Interaction: T-S, S-S
● Play the recording 2-3 times, give students one task each time
(1) identify whether each speaker lives in a house or an apartment
“Listen to four people talking about where they live, then you need to tell whether they live in an apartment or a house.”
(2) match the number of each speaker to the topics
“Now, we will listen to it again. This time, match the number of each speaker to the topics on page 83.”
(3) note down the words the speakers used to describe their home “What did they say about those topics? Can you summarize it?”
● Write down students’ answers on the board and lead students to make comparisons.
“Do you remember what was his house like before moving into this one?”
“How do you think of her apartment compared to the other apartment?”
1.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: S-S
● Ask students the question: Do you prefer renting a house or buying your own house? Why?
● While students are answering the question, ask them to come up with words that could best describe their feelings and write them down on the board.
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Students will understand the content of the listening and be exposed to some examples of comparatives and superlatives.
The teacher will give students immediate feedback during the discussion and delayed feedback after discussion.
Transition to #2: Language focus
Let’s look at these reasons for buying or renting homes. What do we use when we compare something?
Activity 2: Language Focus – Comparatives and superlatives (Ning’ou)
2.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-S, S-T
● Write down students’ answers to the pros and cons of house and apartment (adjectives and adverbs), then identify the rules for forming comparatives and superlatives
“What factors have you considered while deciding the pros and cons? How did you compare them? ”
e.g. cheaper, the price is higher, more expensive
“What are the differences between ‘high’ and ‘expensive’ in terms of their form?” (“The word ‘expensive’ is longer than ‘high’”)
“How should we define ‘long’ and ‘short’?” (By counting syllables)
“What is a syllable? Can someone tell me how many syllables does ‘expansive’ have?”
● Remind students of the irregular adverbs and adjective, such as good/well-better-best, little/few-less/fewer-least/fewest, bad-worse-worst, etc.
● Ask students to look at these sentences:
(1) The price is getting higher and higher.
(2)The colder the climate, the warmer your house needs to be.
“What do they suggest?” (changes, two related things change together)
2.2. During Stage:
Interaction: T-S, S-S, T-S
● Use Random team generator to make 4 groups
● Introduction to the activity
“Suppose that you are living on campus, at TC, this summer. So, you need to choose an apartment for yourselves. I have some information for you to look at and consider. There are the floor plan, the housing rate form as well as the room description.”
● Hand out the worksheet for student 1, student 2 and student 3.
“Now, based on (a) the housing rate form, (b) the floor plan, and (c) room description, choose an apartment for yourself and explain the reason by using comparatives and superlatives. You can share an apartment with your partners in your group, or live by yourself. Make sure you choose a specific dorm, with a room number, OK?”
● Modeling
“For example, I choose to live in 915 South. Because it is a 2-bedroom-share dorm, I will only have 1 roommate, much fewer than living in a suite. 915 South is more spacious than 915 North, that’s why I make this choice.”
● CCQ
“What structure do you need to use during the activity?” (comparatives and superlatives)
“Can you just stop after deciding the type of the room?” (No. Need to decide a specific room to live in.)
2.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: S-S, S-T
● Have students announce their decision one by one and give their reasons.
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Students will practice comparatives and superlatives with real-life topics and meaningful contexts.
The focus of the feedback is the form of comparatives and superlatives.
The teacher will give both immediate and delayed feedback during and after the discussion. Students will give peer feedback during their discussion. The teacher will also elicit students’ peer feedback and self-correction.
Transition to Activity 3
As you can see, the topic for this unit is our living space. But we are facing two major problems that can be bad for our living space on earth, which are overpopulation and a shortage of natural resources.
Activity 3: Meaningful Output – Speaking (Haoyue)
3.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-S, S-Ss, T-S
● Tell students to think about one place they want to move to
“Because of these two problems. Many people have expressed their willingness to get away from the place they are living in. Some people want to move to the outer space, while others would like to live underwater.”
● Ask them talk in pairs about their dream home
“So now I want you to talk in pairs about where you want to live. It can be anywhere, such as underwater, as I have mentioned, or just in the woods. “
● Give students 3 minutes to talk about it
“Now I’ll give you 3 minutes to talk about your dream home and the reasons for choosing that.”
● Students report back
3.2. During Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-S, S-Ss
● Explain the following situation
“You all have great ideas about where to live, so actually we have three different projects for cities of the future. Those are space city project, moon city project and floating city project.”
● Divide the class into three groups and label each group A,B or C
“Funds have been made available to build a new city in space, on the moon, or on water, which is necessary to cope with the problems of overpopulation, and a shortage of resources. Now I’m going to divide the class into three groups, The groups A, B, and C represent the organizations submitting the different building projects.”
● Distribute document A to group A, document B to group B, and document C to group C, and ask students to study them carefully
“Now I will pass out those three documents to you. Each document including the basic information of that project, including population, economic activity, quality of life, transport and communication.”
● Tell students that they will be asked to present their case to the rest of the class
“Now I want you to prepare for the presentation of your project in groups. You are going to show your project to us to compete for the funds. You are supposed to focus on the advantages of your project based on those five aspects so as to win. All of your group members are supposed to be part of your presentation.”
● Distribute posters to students
“I will give each group one poster and you can use it for your presentation.”
● Ask CCQs
“So, what are you gonna do?” “Prepare for the presentation of your project.”
“Should some of you be representatives of all of the group members?” “Yes all of you.”
● Give students 10 mins to prepare for their presentation
3.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-S, S-Ss, T-S
● Ask each group to give their presentation; have other groups to listen carefully can try to come up with awkward questions
“It’s time for your presentation! I will give each group 4 minutes. While they are reporting, I want the rest of you to listen carefully and try to ask awkward questions to challenge them.”
● After their presentation, have several students talk about their opinions to decide which project can win
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Students will give a presentation about their project and design a poster as a group;
Teacher will give feedback during their group discussion and after their presentation; Peer feedback will happen during their group work
Transition to Activity 4
Just now we talked about living outside the earth, now it’s time for us to come back to reality and talk about our real apartments or houses.
Activity 4: Fluency Development (Haoyue)
4.1 Pre-Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-Ss, T-S
● Have students brainstorm words/phrases/expressions to describe a house or apartment
“We have talked a little bit about houses and apartments, but do you know how to describe the interior of a room? What expressions do you know that can be used to describe the style of your room?”
● Show students some examples of description
“Except for all of those great expressions, I also have three more for you.”
“Let’s have a look at this room, what can you think of? How can you describe this room?”
4.2. During Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-S
● Have students stand up and form two lines facing each other
● Show the first question to them and give them 30 seconds to think about it
● Have the first line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have the second line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have them switch partners by taking a step to their left
● Show the second question to them and give them 30 seconds to think about it
“What’s your favorite room in your home? Why?”
“Now you can see the second question on the screen and you will also have 30 seconds for preparation.”
● Have the first line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have the second line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have them switch partners by taking a step to their left
● Show the third question to them and give them 30 seconds to think about it
“What kind of strange or unusual house do you know about? (If you don’t know any, use your imagination) Please describe it.”
● Have the first line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have the second line to begin talking for 90 seconds
● Have students go back to their seats
4.3 Post-Stage:
Interaction: T-Ss, S-Ss, T-S
● Go over those three questions and have students report their findings about their partners
Tangible Outcome & T. feedback/peer feedback:
Students will be able to use several related words to talk about apartments or houses;
Teacher will give feedback during during their group discussion and after their presentation; Peer feedback will happen during their group work
Transition to Wrap-Up:
You all did a great job by giving your opinions and sharing your partner’s thoughts. Before the end of today’s class, we want you to do a survey.
Wrap-up
● Students fill in the questionnaire from the CLP office
● Assign homework
Workbook, page 40, 7a
Anticipated Problems & Suggested Solutions:
Problem:
The project may cost more time depending on student’s discussion
Solution: Skip the last activity
Contingency Plans:
If the class finishes early, we will have a little review of Unit 6. If we are running out of time, we will stop after the speaking activity and use the last 10 minutes for students to complete the student survey on class. The fluency development activity could be used as a review at the beginning of our next class.
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