CELTA Assignment 3 – Skills Related Tasks (A3SRT)
Gail Fish (Student ID No: 080223711)
Word Count: 1138
CELTA Assignment 3 – Skills Related Tasks (A3SRT) 1. I have chosen to use an authentic reading text with the Upper Intermediate group of students I am currently working with during my teaching practice lessons. This is a news article about ‘space tourism’ from the BBC website. I think the students would find the topic interesting and quite unusual, thus heightening their motivation to read. This text also exposes them to the type of authentic language that they could encounter in the ‘real world’, outside the classroom. I think the text is appropriate for the Upper Intermediate group of students because it is quite challenging for them, but not excessively. They will encounter several new words in the text and I would pre-teach some, but not all of these, as this would deny them the chance to understand natural written English for themselves (Harmer 2007: 272). The lesson aims to develop students’ reading comprehension skills, in that it will enable them to make sense of an authentic text as independently as possible, without attempting to understand every single word (Scrivener 2005: 184). A lot of detail is contained within the text, which can be utilised in my tasks both before the students read and during the gist and detailed comprehension stages. The text also presents the opportunity for communicative discussion as a follow-up task, giving the students the chance to exchange their thoughts and opinions with each other after reading it. 2. Following a brief personalised lead-in focusing on modes of transport students have used to travel on holiday in the past, I would introduce a prediction task for the students to do before they read the text. This is a very student-centred activity which creates interest in the content of the text and “activates schemata” (Harmer 2007: 271). I would tell the students that they are going to read a text, and that I want them to predict, or guess what it will be about. I will provide clues, consisting of two pictures of the spacecraft mentioned in the text (see figure 1 – the mothership, ‘Eve’, and figure 2 – the spacecraft, ‘SpaceShipTwo’), and some key words and numbers written on the board. These will include ‘spacecraft’ (I would make the students aware that they can see spacecraft in the pictures), ‘tourists’, ‘Earth’, ‘family’, ‘18’ and ‘100,000’ (see board plan). I would then ask the students to discuss their ideas in groups about the possible content of the text they are about to read, and this will heighten their interest in the text itself. 3. After conducting a brief feedback with the class about their predictions, I would give the students the text and ask them to read it to find out if their predictions were indeed correct. The students now have a reason for reading, and Harmer (2007: 271) argues that, “prediction is vitally important if we want students to engage fully with the text”. I would encourage the students not to try to understand everything, but to read quickly whilst looking for the ‘clues’ they have been given, and to find out the significance of the words and numbers in the context of the text. The students would read individually and then in pairs to discuss their understanding of the text in comparison to their earlier predictions. This is a “Type 1” task, so the students are reading for general understanding (Harmer 2007: 270). The task is therefore designed to develop the students’ sub-skill of reading for gist, or “skimming” (Scrivener
2005: 185, 187; Watkins 2005: 58). I would have a picture of Richard Branson available to show the students during the task if they do not know who he is (figure 3). 4. By this stage of the lesson, the students have a general understanding of the content of the text. The text contains several words that will probably be new to them, so before setting a more detailed comprehension task it would be necessary to pre-teach some vocabulary. I would focus only on the key vocabulary the students require to fulfil the task, pre-teaching words such as ‘maiden’, ‘sub-orbital’, ‘aerospace’, ‘hangar’, ‘mothership’, ‘hybrid rocket’, ‘thorough’ and ‘excursion’. It is possible to do more in-depth vocabulary tasks with this text. However, the next task focuses on comprehension. My second while-reading task is a “Type 2” task, during which the students will answer questions aimed at developing the sub-skill of reading for detailed comprehension (Harmer 2007: 270). Students would be divided into ‘A’ and ‘B’ (two at each table), the two groups answering six questions individually. All of the ‘A’ questions would be the same, and likewise for the ‘ B’ questions. The paragraphs in the text are numbered 1-6. The As would answer questions about paragraphs one, three and five, and the Bs paragraphs two, four and six, so that they are doing jigsaw reading. I would cut up the text and give students their paragraphs and questions on coloured pieces of paper (pink for A and green for B) in random order, thus making them read their paragraphs more closely in order to find the section of text containing each answer. This makes the task more interactive. The students would then compare answers with the same-lettered person at their table, allowing them to share knowledge and ideas, therefore consolidating their learning. Finally, the ‘A’ students would exchange their answers with the ‘B’ students in pairs. They could swap their sets of questions and ask each other for the answers, showing the other student where to find them in the text. This is a studentcentred way of completing the task, with the double advantage that the students are speaking and listening to each other whilst also learning about the text. 5. I would give the students a follow-up task focusing on the productive skill of speaking. I would move two students from each group to the next group, ensuring that everyone has the chance to work with different people. This livens up the atmosphere for speaking practice, which the students usually enjoy. The students would discuss their opinions about the article and ‘space tourism’ in their groups. Each group would have four cards face down on their table with questions to prompt discussion. The students would pick up one card at a time and discuss each question for 2-3 minutes. The questions would focus on the students’ opinions on the article, whether they think that space travel will become popular in the future, possible ‘tourist attractions’ in space, and whether they would like to go on holiday to space. The purpose of this follow-up task is to give students the opportunity for some communicative speaking practice and to encourage them to discuss their own thoughts and opinions about the text they have read. The lesson finishes with some personalisation and I think the students would enjoy giving their own opinions on this topic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY •
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Harmer, J. (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching 4th ed. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Scrivener, J. (2005) Learning Teaching 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan. Watkins, P. (2005) Learning to Teach English Surrey: Delta Publishing. Unknown Author (2008) ‘Branson Unveils Space Tourism Jet’ at BBC News Website (Published 28/7/08, accessed at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7529978.stm).
