Module 5: Grammar

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Grammar Point: Past Perfect

Meaning: 

• When the speaker is referring to events in the past, the past perfect is used to make clear that something happened earlier in time than another past time that the speaker is referencing

Difficulties

• Learners frequently incorrectly use the past perfect to signal something that happened a long time ago

Use

• The past perfect is only mandatory when two events are reported out of sequence and there are no time adverbials.  It is not used when the order of the verbs follows the order of events.

Difficulties

• After studying the past perfect, Learners will often overextend its use to any narrative in which there are two verbs in the same sentence.

Form

• had + past participle

• “had” is sometimes contracted in spoken English or informal written English

Difficulties

• Because the past simple and past participle form of regular verbs are the same, learners might not realize that the past perfect uses the past participle unless they encounter examples of irregular verbs.

Pronunciation

• “had” can be pronounced as either a strong  /hæd/ or a weak form /(h)əd/.  Because it is an auxiliary verb in the past perfect, it is commonly pronounced with the weak form unless it is being emphasized. 

• “had” is frequently pronounced in a contracted form /d/

Difficulties

• Learners may overuse the strong form of “had”

• Learners may not hear the contracted form of “had”, and thus might not realize the past perfect is being used.

Guided Discovery Appendix

Context.  (The following is done as a dictogloss, following the normal dictogloss procedure. )

Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 6 AM, and I woke up.  I got out of bed and drank the coffee that I had made the night before. Then I ate some bread and cheese that I’d bought last week.  I took a shower, and then put on some clean clothes that I’d washed the day before.  I went to work and read the report that my boss had written.  Then I worked on the project that my co-worker had started the day before.

Noticing: At the end of the dictogloss, the students will be given a written form of the text to compare their final answers with.  Then, students will be asked to underline the verbs in the written text, and encouraged to devise two categories that they can sort the verbs into.

Then, the students will be given the guided discovery worksheet.  (Guided discovery worksheet below):

Worksheet: past perfect

A. Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 6 AM, and I woke up.  I got out of bed and drank the coffee that I had made the night before. 

1) When did I get out of bed?

2) When did I drink the coffee?

3) When did I make the coffee?

4) Put these events in the order they happened in time:

____ got out of bed

____ drank the coffee

____ had made (the coffee)

B. Choose the correct timeline for this sentence:  I got out of bed and drank the coffee that I had made the night before

1)2)

3)4)

C. “had made coffee” is in the past perfect tense.  Choose the correct rule for the past perfect?

1. The past perfect is used to show that something happened a long time ago.

2. The past perfect is used  to show that something happened before now.

3. The past perfect is used to show that something happened before the time in the past that is being talked about.

4. The past perfect is used to show that something happened after the past simple.

D.   Look at the three sentences.  When should you not use the past perfect?  1 and 3 are incorrect.  2 and 4 are correct.  

1. Yesterday morning, my alarm had gone off at 6 AM, and I woke up. (incorrect)

2. Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 6 AM, and I woke up. (correct)

3.  I had gotten out of bed and drank the coffee that I had made the night before. (incorrect)

4. Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 6 AM, and I woke up. (correct)

Circle the correct answer:

You should not use the past perfect when:

1. The order of the verbs and the order of the time is the same

2. The order of the verbs and the order of the time is different

E. Look at table showing past perfect verbs from the story.  Write the form above the column:

had	made
’d	bought
’d	washed
had	written
had	started

F. In the sentence, “that I had made the night before”, what is the correct pronunciation of “had”?

1). /hæd/

2). /həd/

Module 4: Productive Skills

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The activity was to write a five paragraph compare and contrast essay on two different methods of writing.  

The topic as written is not interesting to the learners because it sounds too abstract.  It can be made more interesting by encouraging the learners to think about their own experience in schools.   

The learners are given adequate time to formulate ideas by two prewriting stages (“Brainstorm” and “Plan”) that occur prior to the “Write” stage.  However there is not physical space in the book to write their ideas in these stages.

Evaluating whether or not input is given pre-task depends on whether this activity is judged in isolation, or as a cumulation of the unit  The textbook is designed for this to be the culmination of the unit.  During the unit, input is given on ideas and vocabulary related to the topic (p.92-110), as well as the structure of the essay type (p.111-115)

The activity in the textbook makes references to earlier pages in the unit that the textbook assumes were done on previous days.  Assuming these pages were completed, the format and procedure is sufficiently clear.

The goal of the activity is to complete the essay.

As for feedback, the textbook includes a peer review stage, and a self-assessment stage.  The textbook leaves ambiguous whether or not the teacher  will give feedback on the task, but tells students that they should be prepared to hand in their work or discuss it in class.

I adapted the material in a number of ways.  Earlier in the unit, I tried to increase interest in the topic by having students compare their own experience learning to write in Vietnam with a video about the teaching of handwriting in the United States.

During the lesson, I adapted it by putting the textbook activities onto a Google Document.  This was done to create physical space for the brainstorming and planning activities (which were not present in the textbook) and also allowed me to monitor the writing in real time.  I also created a table for organizing the paragraph planning that the students could fill out.  I also changed the pair work activities to group work activities because of classroom management issues with teaching online.  

At the beginning of class, students were put into groups to brainstorm ideas.  They were encouraged to reflect on what they had learned during the week during this time. 

The students then planned their paragraphs using the table.  I monitored and gave feedback on ideas. 

The students then started to write their essays.  They did not complete it in class, but I gave them feedback on what they did create.

From my perspective, the lesson successfully gave students practice in brainstorming and planning an essay.  I believe the fact that the students did not complete the essay in class time is due to the lack of urgency and low-level of engagement that accompanies online teaching.

From the students’ perspective, I believe the formal structure of this lesson met their expectations for what an EAP writing lesson would be like, although they probably found it a bit dull.  They did, however, get feedback on their essay plans, which I think they value because they know this is of use to them on their upcoming assessment.

Appendix--Materials

Please find below the following materials in the following order

1. Q Skills 4: Reading For Success, Unit 4, pages 119-120

2. Self-created Worksheet for Q Skills 4: Reading For Success, Unit 4, pages 119-120.  (This was in the form of a Google Document for the class.)

3. Task Sheets for Youtube Video (Self-created.  from the beginning of the week)

4. Q Skills 4: Reading For Success, Unit 4, Writing Skill page 111-113 (This is from the previous lesson.  The Writing Skill lesson in the textbook is actually pages 111-116, but I’m only attaching 111-113 because that is all we did in class.)

Module 3: Receptive Skills

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The reading was an excerpt from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott ( Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4, Unit 3, Reading 2, pages 72 - 78). I can identify it as an authentic text because the textbook clearly identifies it as an excerpt from a book.

The main purpose of the lesson is receptive skills development.  However the text will be later exploited in a subsequent writing lesson.  The textbook is set up so that the writing task at the end of the unit is in the same genre as the reading.  The text is also exploited for vocabulary building.  Each reading in this textbook has twelve vocabulary words highlighted.  These words are selected with the goal of building vocabulary knowledge rather than on their importance to understanding the text. 

The brief introduction to the text at the bottom of page 72 helps to guide student understanding of what to expect.  In addition, the reading fits into the larger theme of the unit, childhood influences, and discussion on this same topic was done in the previous lessons.  There is also a lead-in question specific to this reading, all of which serves to activate students’ schemata.

The genre is memoir.  This is stated on page 72, but students are not explicitly made aware of the genre’s features in today’s lesson.  (It is the subsequent lesson that will examine the features.)

There are multiple tasks accompanying the reading.  The students do not have the stamina to complete all the tasks, and so the teacher has to adapt by selecting.

For the pre-reading tasks, in the textbook the preview task is first, then a lead-in (called “Quick Write”) and then the vocabulary.  I switched the order.  I did the lead-in first, because the introduction to the general topic should proceed previewing the specific text.  I omitted the vocabulary task, because it was too much vocabulary to deal with in a pre-teach, and it would have derailed any interest generated by the lead-in.  Then, because the preview task dealt with global understanding of the whole text, I used it as a gist task instead 

In my lesson, the lead-in was successful because it generated a lot of student ideas, and the gist question was successful because it was easy for students to do and gave them confidence.

As for the reading tasks, I omitted exercise A because it was too general and did not provide guidance for the students.  I skipped exercises B and C because the vocabulary work should only come after the general meaning of the text had been dealt with.  I used activity D because it was a good way to test students’ general understanding of the text, and activity E because it required detailed comprehension of the text.  Then I did the vocabulary at the end.

The students easily completed exercise D,which they liked because it gave them confidence, but they struggled with Exercise E.  This discouraged them, but I was able to guide them to the correct answers with nudging questions.  I thought this was successful because by struggling a little, and then finding the answer in the end with scaffolding from the teacher, the students were able to increase their ability to read for detailed comprehension. 

Module 2: Lesson Frameworks

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For this assignment, I chose to do a Test-Teach-Test lesson.  

The major obstacle was adapting this method to online teaching.  Because of the Covid pandemic, all my lessons are online.  In my context, the impact of shifting to online teaching has been a decrease in student participation generally, and a reluctance to participate in speaking tasks especially.  It also makes it more difficult for me to gauge student engagement because I cannot see them.  (They do not turn on their cameras.)

Because of this reluctance to speak, the lead-in question failed to generate a lot of conversation, although I did get the students to write down a few ideas on a shared Google Docs.

I then gave the students test 1.  I could not see their faces, but I was worried that they would be confused about why I was giving them a grammar exercise without any prior grammar instruction.  I worried it would cause them to question my teaching competence.

The students were encouraged to discuss their answers to test 1 before writing them down in the Google Docs.  I monitored the breakout rooms, and unfortunately there was very little discussion or peer teaching going on.  However, the advantage of using shared Google Docs is that I could see these documents being edited in real time, and fortunately for me the results were consistent across all the groups, so it was very easy to decide what uses of articles to focus on.

For the “teach” section, I ended up just presenting the rules to the students on Google Slides, and then reading the slide out.  I am actually not sure how the “teach” part of this framework is supposed to work.  With PPP or Text-Based Approach, it is much easier to pull the language out of the context, and use guiding questions, but how are you supposed to clarify language in a test-teach-test lesson without resorting to just explaining the rules?  

Although, upon reflection, I realize that in this particular lesson I actually did have the language in context, because test 1 was a gap fill within a unified text.  So, once the students had been given the correct answers for test 1, I could have actually used test 1 as a context for the language.  Unfortunately, I did not think of this until later, but this is something I would change if I taught this lesson again.

Once I had explained the rules, I went back to test 1 and picked out the questions that students had trouble with, and asked them to explain to me what rule these items related to.  I was very pleased when they did this successfully, and I think this helped them see what the purpose of test 1 had been.

The students were much more accurate on test 2.  However, because test 1 and test 2 came from different sources, there was one use of articles in test 1 which was not repeated in test 2.  If I did this lesson again, I would edit test 2 so that it reflected all the uses of articles that were in test 1.  

The freer practice went very well.  I was able to monitor the students writing on the Google doc in real time, and then give them feedback afterwards.

Appendix:

Lesson Plan

Main aim: Students will become more accurate in the use of indefinite articles, definite articles, and zero articles

sub aim: Students will practice their writing fluency

Materials: 

Textbook: Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing p.57-58 (screenshots included below)

Worksheet 1: Page 58 of the textbook adapted for into a Google Docs (included below)

Worksheet 2: Test 2.  I adapted this from a worksheet created by one of my colleagues.  This was on the shared Google Drive at my school.  I believe she designed it herself. (Included below)

Worksheet 3: A blank google document for students to write their production task on.  (Not included below, because it is only a blank sheet)

Google Slides Presentation: The Google slides contained some of the text from page 57 of the textbook adapted into a Slideshow presentation.  It is not included because the Google Slide is in a different format.  However the material on the Google Slides is from page 57, which is included below.

stage name	Procedure
Lead-in	Teacher: Imagine you want to sell your house. What are all the things you have to do before you are able to sell it? Students discuss the question in groups Open Class Feedback: Teacher nominates a couple students to give their answer.
Test 1:	Students work in groups to complete worksheet 1, which is a gap fill based on the topic of the lead-in--preparing a house for sale.  This worksheet is based on page 58 of Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4.  However, it has been adapted into a Google document so that it can be used in an online lesson. (Notes--ordinarily this would be pair work, but it’s been adapted to groups because it’s an online lesson, and there are 4 breakout rooms.) The teacher monitors their progress.  The students are working on google docs, which the teacher also has access to, so the teacher can see the answers as they are being written.  The teacher can also go into the breakout rooms to monitor. Open class feedback is conducted by giving the groups the answer key, and having them check their answers and note which ones they got wrong.
Teach	The teacher presents information on the use of definite and indefinite articles.  This information is based off of page 57 of Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4.  However, the teacher will adapt the presentation to focus on the common errors that were observed during test 1. After presenting this information, the teacher will go back to common errors on test 1.  The teacher will ask students to tell him what rules the exercises correspond to.  (e.g. “Why is number 18 “the” ?  What rule does that match?)
Test 2	The students complete worksheet 2.   They do this first individually, and then check in groups.  The teacher monitors the group work by viewing the Google documents, and gives immediate correction as needed.  Then once students have completed the task, open class feedback is by the teacher nominating students.
Production	The teacher tells the students to write a description of a vacation that they have been on, using definite articles, indefinite articles, and zero articles where appropriate.  (This is the same topic as test 2).  The students write on a shared Google Docs which the teacher monitors.  The teacher collects examples of usages of articles (both correct and incorrect) from the production, and uses these for delayed feedback.

Worksheet 1

Complete the email.  Write the correct articles: a/an, the or for Ø no article

Hi Louis,

Sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, but I have ___ big news. I got ___ job that I told you about, so I’m selling my house! You know that ___ housing market is very tough right now, but I’m happy because there is already___  couple who are interested in my place.___ potential buyers are coming over in two weeks. I want to stage ___  house so that everything looks perfect. I’m wondering if you might be able to help me, so I thought I’d tell you what I’m planning.

This weekend, I’m going to clean ___ house all over and repaint all ___ doors. I also bought ___ awesome dining table to put in ___ kitchen. (I need some help picking it up!) Then I want to paint ___ main bedroom—probably in ___ soft blue color. And when ___ weather is nice, I want to clean up___ yard and plant ___ flowers.

Real estate agents always say that when ___ buyers are looking at ___  houses, they want to feel like they already live there, so I know this will be worth all ___  effort.

Let me know if you can help me. Oh, and one other question. Do you

know where I can find___ good hardware store?

Felix

Worksheet 2

Complete the email.  Write the correct articles: a/an, the or for Ø no article

My family and I went on holiday to ______ island. _______ island is called Borneo.  On _____ island there are many different animals like _______ monkeys and lizards.  We didn’t see many of _____ monkeys because they only come out at night.  One day, one of _______ lizards crawled into my sister’s bed and she screamed really loudly.  ______ bed was big enough for two people but she slept there on her own.

One day we hired _____ boat to go fishing.  ______ boat wasn’t very big but it was perfect for our family.  My brother was the first one to catch ____ fish.  _____ fish was very colorful and quite big.  By the end of the day we all managed to catch at least one fish.

When we were done fishing, we decided to pull the boat up to _____ beach.  _____ beach was very nice and it had bright white sand and clear blue water!  As I was sitting under _____ tree, _____ coconut fell and almost hit me in the head!  I didn’t know that ______ tree was a coconut tree.  If I had known it was a coconut tree I wouldn’t have sat under it.  I picked up _____ coconut that almost hit me and found ____ rock to break into it.  I hit ____ coconut with _____ rock many times and I finally got to the coconut milk.  It was delicious and very refreshing!

When we got back to the village we checked into _____ hotel.  ______ hotel was very big and quite expensive.  There were many good restaurants at _____ hotel and we ate seafood every night.  _____ seafood at _____ hotel was the best I’ve ever had!

After one week on _____ island, we had to go home.  I will never forget that holiday, it was _____ best holiday I’ve ever been on!

Module 1: Course Introduction and Overview

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Module 1: Course Introduction and Overview

I have three main goals which I would like to work towards on this Advanced Methodology course.

My first goal is to make my lessons for receptive skills more engaging for the students.  The reason is because I have identified this as a weak point in my teaching.  Students often feel bored in my lessons, and do not engage with the material.  I plan to try to achieve this goal by trying out new receptive skill activities in the classroom, and reflecting on how they engaged students.  In my current practice, my receptive skill lessons usually just consist of comprehension questions and feedback, but I would like to explore other approaches.  I will also try to observe a receptive skills lesson of a colleague, in order to see how they create engagement.  I would also like to increase my theoretical knowledge of receptive skills lessons by reading material about receptive skills lessons. For example, Teaching Listening Comprehension by Penny Ur is in my school library.  

A second goal I have is to increase the amount of speaking in my classroom.  This is because the students I teach are often reluctant to speak, and I have not yet found any good strategies for increasing their speaking confidence.  I would like to do this by experimenting with different kinds of speaking tasks.  In my usual lessons, I usually give students questions to discuss, but I am aware that discussion questions are only one type of speaking activity, and I would like to become more familiar with other activities.  This is also another goal where I think that I would greatly benefit from observing a speaking lesson by a colleague.   I would like to increase my theoretical knowledge of how to teach speaking by reading Teaching Speaking by Christine Goh and Anne Burns, which has been recommended to me by my manager, and which I have in my apartment now.  

Finally, I would like to try to improve my ability to create clear lesson aims.  This is because I am aware that my lessons are often a series of activities or controlled practices without any clear aim to connect them.  Other times, I just try to work through the textbook pages without thinking about what the lesson objective is.  To do this, I would first of all like to revise my theoretical knowledge on planning lessons by re-reading parts of  Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener, which is in my apartment.  I would also like to practice constructing clear lesson aims by making an effort to plan my lessons in the future around one clear aim, and then reflecting on how well that aim worked.  Finally, I would like to ask some colleagues if they would let me look at some of their recent lesson plans, and discuss their lesson aims with them.

Successful Productive Activities and their Important Features

(This is cross-posted with my main blog HERE.  As this was a group project for a course I did, I'm counting this both as a "paper" I wrote--"paper" here being broadly interpreted to include class projects--and also including this in my list of TESOL activities on my main blog.)

Youtube Video HERE

Padlet HERE

Many of these activities I've previously mentioned on this blog. See the links below:

* Get to Know Your Group

* Role Play

* Collaborative Story Writing Activity

* Taboo

* Present Simple Conversation Prompts

* Present Simple Versus Present Continuous Walk Around the Room Questions

* Speed Dating: Present Simple Habits and Routines

* Find the Person Who is Most Similar/Different to You: Freer Practice Activity

* Telling Your Stories

* Write the End of the Story

* Fortunately by Remy Charlip (Writing Activity)

Audiolingualism: Background

 Although the Audiolingual Method is nowadays closely associated with Skinner and Behavorism, some people claim this is an oversimplification of its actual history, since Audiolingualism actually began before Skinner’s theories were widely in vogue.  (see The myth of neat histories).   Audiolingualism was actually primarily developed in the University of Michigan by Charles Fries, drawing on a number of practices that were common at the time (although Skinner’s theories were later used as theoretical justifications for the method after it was already created.)  

The Audiolingual method was used by the U.S. army during World War II.  In the context of the U.S. army, the audiolingual method was a great success, although it is not entirely clear why it was a great success.  Krashen and Terrell say that, as the method was implemented in the U.S. army, it actually consisted of two parts--the first part was one in which dialogues were drilled in the classroom, the second part consisted of a conversation with a native speaker about real life topics.  Krashen and Terrell attribute the success of the audiolingual approach to the conversation part, not the drilling part (see The Natural Approach).

In response to the great success audiolingualism had shown in the U.S. army, it was implemented in secondary schools across the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.  However, it did not achieve the same success in U.S. high schools that it did in the U.S. Army.  

Krashen and Terrell believe that this was because everyone remembered the drilling element, but forgot about the conversation with the native speaker element.  

A different view is offered by Lightbown and Spada, who believe that audiolingualism method worked in the army because the army consisted of a group of highly motivated adult learners.  They believe that audiolingualism fell apart in the high school setting because of the lower motivation of high school students.   (see How Languages are Learned).

When the audiolingual method failed to provide the same success in high schools as it did in the U.S. army, educators began to look for different methods.  At around time, the theoretical underpinnings of audiolingualism began to fall out of favor as behaviorism fell out of favor thanks, in part, to Chomsky’s criticism of Skinner.

[Note: This was a small section I wrote for a larger group paper, but since I summarizes the reading I've done on audiolingualism over the past few years (see links to sources), I thought I would save it here.]