PAST SIMPLE + PRONUNCIATION ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE THE STUDENTS' PARTICIPATION

 

Shared by Raquel Gómez:

First of all, I should bear in mind the students´level and the aims the students should achieve at the end of the lesson.I will write on the board those aims at the beginning of the class : students will be able to tell experiences and stories in the past and they will be familiar with the form, use and pronunciation of regular and irregular past tenses.

I will give students a tongue twister to read on arrival:

Betty bought a bit of butter but the bit of butter Betty bought was bitter so Betty bought a bit of butter to make her batter better. Students will practise in pairs pronunciation and intonation after my reading. Then , they will guess which verbs are in the past.

Afterwards, I will project a slide of different leisure activities, I will flash them up, take them away and put them back. Students should remember the activities that appeared on the screen. They will name a verb phrase about the pictures. For example, go swimming, listen to music, play tennis, etc. Using those activities I will write a sentence on the board in the present simple and another one in the simple past. I will elicit from students which one is in the present and past simple.

Then, I will ask them questions using the simple past: Did you play tennis yesterday? Practising affirmative and negative short answers. Another question: When was the last time you ...? I would ask them a question that made them think about their childhood, but they wouldn´t have to answer immediately, they should think about it during the lesson and at the end of it they will tell their answers. Predicting and guesssing is a good idea to encourage students to speak, so students will be given a fairy tale using one word and they will guess the next word. For example, I will say : "Once" and they will whisper in pairs :"upon". After that, I will count to 3, then all call out the answer together. I will continue saying "a" and they will whisper and call out "time".

Anticipating words helps students to retain information. Also, when the teacher pause, students instinctively predict. Not only does it buid suspense, but also it adds depth and drama. In addition to this, it gives the teacher essential feedback on whole class comprehension. Breaking up activities is very useful for students to learn new words. For example, I will say the beginning of a verb in the past and then, I will pause. After that, they will predict the rest of the verb. Students change pairs and Student A will read a text to Student B. He/ she will pause before a word B could guess, or mid-word for B to complete it. B will guess and complete A´s words. For homework: Students will choose their favourite story and will make a slide Powerpoint leaving breaks so that their partners can complete them in the following lesson. Also, we can use a song and pause it to elicit words from students. In this case, I will choose a song that students like , for example, "Chandalier" by Sia. Students will listen to the song in pairs. Then, I will pause it before a key word for a partner to say it. I will ask them: What do you think the missing word might be? Another way for students to learn new vocabulary might be eliciting contrast between English and Spanish. I will give students clues about a word such as, it has the same first five letters as a Spanish word, it has similar etimology , it sounds like "último" in Spanish and finally, they will guess that the word is "ultimate". What is more, I would encourage any potentially helpful links to L1. Eliciting from them words starting with same letters in both languages. For example, one day of the week (Saturday- Sábado). I will show students a cognate slide with instructional verbs: identify, mention, use, etc, so that they can see similarities between both languages (English and Spanish) . i will have students think that English is one of ten most similar languages to Spanish; 58% is Latin based and 1/3 of 3,000 most common words are cognates. To be more familiar with cognates, students will be given a text and in groups they will circle the cognates they can find. They will have a time limit to do it. Each member of the group will have a mission one will be the time keeper, another one will circle the cognate but everyone will find them. I will have students appreciate how much English they know from Spanish. I will pay attention to pronunciation using regular past tenses in context. Students will be given this sentence. I opened an earlier email. I will mark the word stress consistently on poly-syllabic words the sentence stress, silent letters, links and schwa. Then, I will give them another example and in pairs, they will have to do the same. Students will display an irregular verb list on their classroom wall, this way they will learn the verbs and can look at them in case they need them.

Finally, I will finish the lesson using a song. Firstly, I will write a song line on the board, but without the -ed ending in some of the verbs and some irregular verbs in the present instead of being used in the past. Secondly, students will identify the song and I will encourage them to sing it. I´ll ask them: What´s missing on the board? In pairs, students work to spot the mistakes. I will find a video of the song online and play it for students to compare with what is written on the board.