Unit paln final
- 1. Sultan Qaboos University College of Education Unit Plan Of Unit Four “Great Cities” for Grade Eight A Done by: Miysaa Salim AL-Nasseri 111422 Instructor: Dr. Nada AL-Washahi
- 2. Introduction This is a unit plan for the fourth unit of EFM curriculum for grade 8A. The title of the unit is" Great cities". This unit is part of the Basic Education English course for grade 8 in the first semester of the year. The unit "Great cities" is very interesting and useful unit. It presents different ways of understanding, astonishing information about famous cities such as Mexico, Calgary, Makkah and Tokyo. Additionally, the unit illustrates different types of skills and talks about location and directions. "Great Cities" unit is full of practical activities such as speak about the advantages and disadvantages of the cities. There are some tasks require teamwork and some of them require specific skills and strategies such as deductive reasoning skills and referencing skills in reading. This unit is going to be taught for grade eight in Aseela Bint Qias School for Basic Education School (5-9) which is located in Muscat. The Educational system that oversees the school is run by the Ministry of Education. The headmistress of the school is Omani teacher. This unit will be taught for Arabic students using Arabic as their first language and English is a foreign language in their society. Most of the students at grade eight have the same age and in moderate educational level. In general, the learners in Aseela School seem to come from good income families and some of the are not. The average number of students in a classroom is 37. This unit is designed to be taught in 15 lessons. There are some positive and negative characteristics about grade eight. First, their level in English is somehow lower than it is supposed to be which means they need more help and support towards learning the English language. Therefore, that will help them to raise their level in English. On the other hand, they are some students who are well behaved, active, and motivated. Thus, all these characteristics will help the teachers to move successfully in teaching this unit. All the units in the book target
- 3. to encourage students to develop a positive attitude towards the English language and encourage the student to be a life long learner. Theoretical framework According to my simple analytic investigation of the "English for Me" book and in particular the unit of "Great Cities," I found out that the ministry of education is applying progressivism as an educational philosophy for this curriculum. By looking at the general aims in the teacher's book, I can see that most aims reflect the characteristics of this philosophy. For example, it aims to encourage children to be actively involved in the learning process and it is the aim of the Ministry of Education. The unit concentrates on experiential education by guiding students to understand through their own experiences of cities. Moreover, the unit’s activities reflect the idea that education should focus on the student rather than the content. Additionally, the tasks set in the unit reflect the same philosophy. For instance, on page 36 in the class book, the students are asked to tell their friends about they have read which requires them to work with their classmates and therefore promote social learning. According to my own philosophy which I think that it is better to focus on my students along with the content of the book. Before I start the unit, I ask them what are the places that they have visited or they want to visit and show the location on the world map. Then, I ask them to have a quick look through the unit pages and tell me an overall idea about what they are going to learn getting their excitement and full attention. Thus, I integrate what they need to know with the content of the unit itself and I show the importance of the topic of the unit. Furthermore, I make our students work in groups which will be divided according to the student's levels; that is, each group should contain both high and low levels of students so that they can learn from each other.
- 4. However, I will give each student the chance to choose one peer that she wants to be within her group because students tend to learn better when they are with their favourite peers. This will give them comfort while working together and will encourage social learning as well. In addition, I will apply the experiential education by making my students learn by doing. For example, I will provide some examples of local Omani cities and making them do speak using another language that they know other than English and Arabic. I always encourage my students to find out the meaning of the new words using their own dictionaries in order to reach a deeper understanding through their own investigation. Moreover, I will have school-home cooperation; that is, I inform the parents of how their daughter did throughout the unit. Further, I will always encourage my students to be lifelong learners. Regarding the learning theories, I believe in Operant Conditioning theory which is a sort of behaviourism. I believe that the consequences of a certain behaviour affect the probability of its occurrence later. Reinforcement and punishment whether negative or positive play an important role in increasing or decreasing the probability that the behaviour will occur. This theory is very necessary for my class management and for improving my students' learning process. Further, I affirm that it's important for me is to choose effective reinforces by finding out what reinforces work best with which student and also to choose reinforces that may motivate children intrinsically rather than extrinsically. From a personal experience, I believe that praise is one of the best reinforces for students ever. It motivates the good students to work even harder and to have a high self-esteem which will affect their learning process positively
- 5. I think the unit of "Great Cities" is an interesting unit and useful for student's lives. They will learn about different cities and cultures. Moreover, students will enjoy other traditions and values of the cities around the world. Goals and Objectives: Grade eight students in Great Cities unit are required to achieve these goals and objectives during the unit and should be fulfilled by the end of the unit. Goal 1: Talk about extreme cities using different aspects Objectives: At the end of the unit, students should be able to Talk about cities Discuss their opinion about different cites Goal 2: use the present perfect to talk about their experience in life up to now. Objectives: At the end of the unit, students should be able to: tell where they have to use the present perfect. describe what is happening in the pictures. Goal 3: read a verity of short texts about cities from around the world for specific information. Objectives: At the end of the unit, students should be able to: quickly skim a passage for specific information. reply to the emails and letters they read and write about their favourite city. Goal 4: Listen to a variety of texts for general understanding and for specific information. Objectives: At the end of the unit, students should be able to: Listen for specific information. Listen for general understanding.
- 6. Goal 5: Write their own diary Objectives: At the end of the unit, students should be able to: Listen and draw their trip diaries Use abbreviations in writing diaries Pedagogy Part 1: student-centred learning Student-centred approach advocates students' involvement in the classroom and expects them to use teaching aids and laboratories and to organize their time and efforts to effectively explore and learn the English language (Radu, 2011). This approach expects that the teacher will be talking less than the students do in the class and that students are in charge of the way they want to learn the lessons. Of course, in my situation students cannot decide what they want to learn because we have an already set curriculum, but they can decide the type of activities they learn and enjoy most. I will try my best to use student-centered approach of teaching in this unit and the rest of the units simply because it is better for my students learning and enhancing their performance. Using different techniques to engage my students in the learning process. First, I noticed that they lacked team work which is one of the main general goals of this curriculum. The goal states that the teacher should encourage the student to cooperate with their peers and help each other to learn. I found a peer and team work are helpful for learning, so I plan to introduce these terms to my students. For the peer work, I use peer discussions a lot because it is more organized and useful than group discussions. I use peer discussions when I want from the
- 7. students to ask and answer each other whether to use a grammar rule, to discuss a topic or picture, or to understand a reading passage. I tend to always seek my students' help not because I need but because they enjoy assisting and being in charge of things. Therefore, for the activities which I must do a whole class feedback to check the students' answers, I always in all my lessons ask the students to come to the board and write their answers for the rest of their classmates. I always tend to ask for volunteers whenever I needed to explain something and they like it because it is easy for them to understand and remember and because as I said they like to assist. I also ask some students to come to the front of the class to read a dialogue, present something related to the lesson, or whenever they like to add something to the lesson. I like to use technology because the new generations are considered native digitals and when they aren't involved in the activities they would want something visual. This is why I used four videos in the unit to help me explain some lessons or as a warm-up. For example, introducing the lesson of “Makkah” by showing them an effective video about it. Part 2: lesson plans Lesson Plan Date Grade Theme Unit Lesson/Activities 26/11/2018 8A Great Cities 4 1 Learning Outcomes: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: Define the unit Introduce the topic fully
- 8. Potential Challenges: Time Limit Strategies Materials Time Assessment & Evaluation (Area & Tool) Warm-Up: Show the student some sculptures around the world and ask the Ss about them Ask the Ss about the Countries and cities that they have been to and ask them to show the location on the board. Discussion about the topic of the unit and elicit answers from the students. Short presentation done by one of my students, she speaks in the different language of the cities that she has been to. Listen and find the answer, (TF), people talking about the unit Read the poem and draw lines on the map Conclusion Real materials Sculptures+ world map + Classbook Real material cards Papers The skills book,act 1 white board CB act 1p.32 SB act 1p.32 And p.105 10 mints 2 mints 10 mints 10 mints 8 mints Whole observation group Teacher →Students Whole observation Group Teacher→Stud
- 9. Lesson Plan Homework : Asks students to read and number the articles SB Comments/Reminder: -Prepare the game letters for next class Date Grade Theme Unit Lesson/Activities 26/11/2018 8A Great Cities 4 3 Learning Outcomes: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: Define the terms city, town, and village Listen and complete the description of the city, town, and village Potential Challenges: Some student may mix between the three places ( city, town, and village) Strategies Materials Time Assessment & Evaluation (Area & Tool)
- 10. Warm-Up: Show the student a picture of city, town and a village Ask the Ss about the pictures and elicit answers Ask the students to give example from Oman A short presentation was done by two of my students talking about their home cities, towns and villages in French and Spanish. Ss read the texts and decide if the text is about a city, town or village and underline nouns , verbs and adjectives that describe places Listen and write the description on the graphic Short Quiz (matching) Conclusion Pictures and map Cards Screen Cards CB p.32 and 33 10 mints 4mints 5 mints 10 mints 5mints 4 mints Whole observation group Teacher →Students Whole observation Group Teacher→Stud Observation Quiz Homework : Read and complete the table SB Comments/Reminder: -bring materials for next class
- 11. Assessment of student learning Formative assessment is important in order for the teacher to know if she meets the learning goals and objectives of this unit. There are different ways to assess students learning using the formative assessment: questioning is the assessment which can be used at any time to assess the students understanding. However, the teacher should ask good questions which can give a reflection of what the students understood and what they still need. In addition, the teacher should not ask yes/any questions only but the questions which need full sentence’s answers. For example, asking questions after reading texts on p33and p 34 “Do you think these cities are great if so why?” Another type is a discussion, it is an essential way of assessment which tells the teacher about the students’ learning and understanding of the basic concepts. For example, the teacher will initiate the first lesson by a discussion about the cities that the students have been to. The goal of this assessment is to build knowledge and develop creative thinking skills. In addition, the teacher will be able to know the background knowledge of the students. Furthermore, another effective form of formative assessment is self-assessment. For example, students can write their feedback at the end of the lesson which is as evaluation of their own understanding and ideas. Additionally, conducting a quiz by the end of the unit could also be a good way for formative assessment. Though the quiz usually assesses the four skills reading, writing, grammar and vocabs, the topics should be related to the topic of the unit “Great Cities”. Assessing my students' speaking skill by asking to do mini-presentations about their home towns, cities and village and they have to apply the grammar rules of the unit. I will also give them a short quiz containing the vocabulary of the unit which they have to break down into their
- 12. syllables. Grammar quiz is very important. In addition, I am going to continuously assess my students' participation in the class. Summative evaluation, it will be about all the units of the book. It will be in the form Summative assessment will be at the end of the unit in a form of short tests. One will be a writing test about life in future as a theme. There will be another test that focuses on vocabulary and grammar. Expectations of implantation After investigating the different aspects and rules of the unit, it usual to expect some difficulties and challenges. For example, a time limit since the lesson is only 40 minutes and it needs a long of a time to organize the students and the class. Because of that, this creates stress on teachers, so some teachers tend to reduce the number of activities. In addition, the large number of students in each class. It is difficult to monitor, teach and assess 37 students at the same time and them different in abilities, different interest, different learning styles and different backgrounds. Sometimes, the teacher failed in managing the class because of the students’ large number. Despite these challenges, the teacher should expect these problems and be able to deal with them. Furthermore, sine the topic is about cities, it is expected that students are interested and motivated. Another challenge that the teacher may face is using technology effectively in the classroom. Technology makes life easy but sometimes happens the opposite. The teacher should have alternatives for the thing for the materials that are presented using screen or the projector because may the screen will not or something happens to it. By releasing the challenges it expects that the teacher will achieve the units’ goals effectively and make the students fully integrated into the learning process.
- 13. Feedback: As known that feedback is very significant for everyone around the world because it gives him/her the chance to know what are the goals and objectives that he had achieved in doing something and gives him the chance to make changes in doing that thing according to the weakness points and strengthen points. Feedback is very important for teachers because it leads to make changes in the process of teaching and learning for the purpose to meet students` expectations and needs. What I have done while I was teaching this unit many things in term of the strategies and methods of teaching that I had used or in terms of the activities that I gave to my students to improve certain skills with students. The first thing that I had done in the process of teaching is that I used variety of teaching methods for the purpose of making changes in the field of education, so I integrated technology while I was teaching my students certain lessons such as using videos to teach my students the life cycles of different creatures on this planet. In addition to that, I used PowerPoint to teach students grammar and the life cycle of some insects because I wanted my students to understand every single lesson in this unit clearly. Moreover, since my students are called the Technology Generation, I worked hard to prepare half of the lessons by using technology. However, there are different tools of assessment I used while I was teaching this unit such as the spelling tests, I used to give my student every Sunday tweleve words to memorize and I used to choose the most important words in the unit for the spelling test and after the test I collect their exercise books to give them my feedback for the spelling test. Therefore, I used to give my students extra activities as homework for the purpose to make sure that all of them understood the lesson clearly and I used to do that more with grammar lessons. One of the most important points that I had done during teaching my students this unit that at the end of the unit, I asked my students to give me their feedbacks on pieces of papers for the sake to know that if I had achieved the goals of the unit or not. I did that in purpose because my students are humans like me and they have
- 14. feelings and minds, so why I don`t involve them in the process of making changes in teaching and they are the core of teaching before everything. I really liked this move so much because I got to know the needs of my students and what they liked about certain lessons I had explained through using certain strategy. Moreover, while I was teaching this unit, I used to ask my students to correct their pairs` class book or skills book because I wanted to raise the sense of responsibility with them in-terms of giving feedbacks for their pairs. Reflective teaching: Since reflections of anything related to school atmosphere are very significant for teachers, it plays a core role in making changes in the process of teaching and learning. First of all the strategies I used in teaching this unit were a lot and varied because I wanted to make sure that all my students get every single lesson in the plan clearly without any issues. I know that I had spent hours in preparing different lessons of the unit but some of the lessons I prepared them by using easy materials of teaching weren’t supposed to be used or taught by that strategy. For example, I used videos as materials and this strategy was good but not efficient. I was supposed to bring something touchable for the students to make a link inside their brains about that such as Models for tourist attractions. Another point, I showed my students some picture about great cities. I used a specific strategy in teaching grammar which was giving four examples of the rule of grammar and ask the students to find the structure of the rule but this lesson could be done in an interesting way through asking my students to give me examples from their own minds after I gave them the structure of the rule. I strongly believe that if I had done that my students would be integrated in the process of teaching and learning and they wouldn`t face any issues in understanding the lesson. Another point to be raised about one of the strategies of teaching I had used in explaining the lesson of writing is that I used to write different steps of the text on the PowerPoint and I spent so much of
- 15. time to teach my students in explaining every single step and check the sentences of my students. For the whole semester, I have using creative methods in teaching all the lessons and ignoring the methods of teaching which are mentioned in the Teacher`s book because I strongly believe that creativity is building teachers are critical thinkers not guided by a book which was created by someone who has less experience in teaching different levels of students and using creativity is reflected on the performance of the students. There are many challenges I had faced while teaching this unit such as having a complex lesson so I had to divide them into a smaller part for the purpose to make easy for my students` understanding. Also,, there are some activities of the unit were beyond the levels of my students, so I had to fix this issue by changing the form of these activities or through explaining them in simpler ways. However, there are different tools of assessment I used while teaching this unit such as the spelling. Finally, I really enjoyed teaching this unit.