Lesson Plan

Background Information	Date:	November 13, 2015
	Course Level:	Fourth Grade Elementary		Topic:		Comparative and Superlative Adjectives
	Time:	Two Hours
	Main Aims	·      Describe animals, people or objects with simple and short phrases. ·      Use the comparative and superlative adjectives to describe people, objects and animals. ·      Acquire vocabulary related to the superlative and comparative adjectives. ·      Implement the use of technologies in the classroom to increase the attention and motivation in the students.
	Materials:	ICT resources, online games, interactive exercises, board, pictures, notebooks, concrete materials, videos and others.
Stages of the lesson	Time Frame	Procedure	Stage Aims		Aids and materials		Interaction pattern
	15 Minutes	Warm Up/Review Teacher show some pictures containing some adjectives.  Then, we divided the class into, four or five groups. Give each student of the group a small class object, the students have them a list of as many adjectives as they can describe the object. Give students fifteen seconds to create the list, and then have them pass the object to the next group and repeat the process. After each group has gotten each adjective, tally up their lists to see, which group has the most adjectives. Have winning the group share their adjectives with the class.	Increase the motivation and interest in the class through dynamics and games related to the topic.		Class objects: Pencil Bags Notebooks Books Etc.		Teachers- students Students-students
	10 Minutes	Introduction The introduction activity will be a short and simple conversation between teachers and students where they describe people, objects, animals and places of their school. In the description, they’ll use different adjectives and they’ll do short sentences with comparative and superlatives adjectives. Teachers say and show the nouns and students express all adjectives that describe it. After that, educators show once again the nouns and establish many comparisons between these and students listen carefully. Finally, they’ll discover the central topic develop during the class. This conversation should be supported with concrete materials, gestures, pictures and movements to increase the attention, motivation and interest in the students.	Greet the students, introduce the central topic of the class, explore the student`s pre- knowledge and give a basic idea about use of comparative and superlative adjectives		Dialogue Concrete material Gestures Movements		Teachers-students
	30 Minutes	Presentation Activities 1.        Project the video in order to explain the central topic. (Teachers supports the video through own comments) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCLrYbmPvis 2.       After the video, students mention some adjectives seen in the video while teachers write these words on the board. Example: Happy, beautiful, far, tiring and others. After that, teachers classify the adjectives in two groups short and long words. In this part, they explain the rules to form sentences with comparative and superlatives adjectives through images and examples:                        Mr. Stevenson is older than michael. (comparative with short adjectives) Michael is the youngest. (Superlative with short adjectives) The princess is more beautiful than the witch. (Comparative with long adjectives) The princess is the most beautiful. (Superlative with long adjectives) Finally, teachers show other pictures and students do the same exercise many times. In this activity, professors measure the understanding of issues and respond to questions of their students.	Explain the basic rules to form short sentences using the comparative and superlative adjectives.		Video Pictures. Video bean Computer Internet Board Markers		Teachers-students.
	25 Minutes	Practice The practice activity consists in develop some interactive exercises and play with online games. In this sense, teachers write on the board three links in order to students explore these pages and practice the knowledge acquire during the teacher’s explanation about superlative and comparative adjectives. These are the steps of the activity: 1.        Teachers write the links on the board and students visit these pages. http://www.learnenglish-online.com/grammar/tests/superlativecomparative.html https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-games/comparatives-and-superlatives http://www.eslgamesplus.com/comparatives-superlatives-wild-zoo-animals-vocabulary-grammar-interactive-monkey-fun-activity/   http://www.agendaweb.org/grammar/comparative-superlative-exercises.html 2.       In pairs, students do different exercises proposed in these links and take screenshots about their progress or scores of each activity. They repeat these exercises or online games as many times as they get good results and ask to their teachers, if they have doubts to achieve the leaning objectives. 3.       At the end of the practice activity, teachers review the students’ task, which is evidenced by the screenshots.	Practice the acquire knowledge to reinforce the central topic through online games and interactive exercises.		Interactive exercises Online games Computers Internet		Students-students Work in pairs Students-teachers
	30 Minutes	Application This activity is carried out in pairs, where students create a short paragraph, describing their pets, using comparative and superlative sentences, in this activity, students apply the grammar concepts and  vocabulary learned during the process. Example: “This is mi cat, is the most beautiful pet in the world, it is funnier than the turtle, the cat´s name is Star, she is small, has light hair, she loves to play and sleep. She is sweetest and never likes to be alone. This is a small animal and is the slowest of all animals, the turtle is quieter than the cat, lives in water and likes to eat shrimp, and turtle can last longer than the cat” In addition, the students should create a poster with the pets, and should state the qualities or adjectives that have each pet. Clean Old Quiet Happy   Funny Tender Soft Happy The student should practice it for the final evaluation.	Practice in written form the subject  seen, creating of a short text, where the Apprenticeship acquired becomes apparent.		Papers Pictures Colors Pencils Dictionary Notes		Students-students Work in pairs
	10 Minutes	Evaluation 1.        In pairs, the students have to show the description about their pets, in this description the students will speak totally in English. 2.       Have each pair come to the front of the room and use the posters as an aid. 3.       The criteria of evaluation will take into account each one of the activities developed in the classroom, it is necessary  that the student participates actively in all activities is therefore taken into account: ·        Assistance ·        Participation ·        Notes in her notebook ·        Doing exercises during practice ·        The application of the issues through written text ·        Ability to listen and pay attention to the presentations by the partners.	Asses the student’s skills during the development of proposed activities in order to identify weaknesses and strengths of each student and create strategies to improve their performance.		Description about the pet. Oral reports Pictures Oral reports Evidences about student`s performances Final Products.		Students- teachers Students-students Work in pairs

The most relevant answers about the proposed questions.

How important do you think a lesson plan is to a successful lesson? The teaching planning is essential to achieve the learning objectives in all academic areas because it prioritizes and organizes the pedagogical practices. The lesson plan guide and direct to the teacher during the development of the class. In this sense, they select the competences, skills, and topics to be developed; delimit the learning and teaching purposes; design interesting strategies and activities to produce meaningful learning; create various resources to develop the basic skills; determine assessment strategies to identify the strengths and weaknesses; manage times, environments and teaching materials to develop successful classes. Teachers cannot improvise a class because their work requires a lot of responsibility, and if the educators don’t plan their class, they would lose credibility, respect, and authority over their students and it would cause other problems, for example, indiscipline, apathy and disinterest in decontextualized activities and poor academic performance. Additionally, lesson plan has advantages, these are: (1) A plan can help the teacher think about content, materials, sequencing, timing, and activities. (2) A plan provides security (in the form of a map) in the sometimes unpredictable atmosphere of a classroom. (3) A plan is a log of what has been taught. (4) A plan can help a substitute to smoothly take over a class when the teacher cannot teach.  (5) It benefits students because it takes into account the different backgrounds, interests, learning styles, and abilities of the students in one class. (Purgason, 1991)

What features do you think a lesson plan should include?  The lesson plan should consider: (1) Institution name. (2) Grade and Course. (3) Estimated time. (4) Subject. (5) Central topic.  (6) Skills to be develop. (7) General learning objectives. (8) Specific purposes.  (9)Phase to explore previous knowledge.  (10) Teaching aids and materials to be used.  (11) Teaching strategies and activities. (12) Warm up. (13)Introduction.  (14) Presentation. (15) Practice. (16) Application. (17) Evaluation.

Do you think it is a good idea to strictly follow a lesson plan? Why? On the one hand, we think that is a good idea to strictly follow a lesson plan because it’s important the compliance with established times for each proposed activity in order to develop the academic program of the school year and achieve the defined learning objectives in each class. On the other hand, lesson plans aren’t recipes to strictly follow, Teachers can make modifications or actions they deem appropriate before, during and after class.  The lesson plan should be flexible because during the class can occur unpredicted events: accidents, unexpected guests, difficulties in understanding an activity, students concerns and others. For this reason, educators should create strategies to advance in the planned activities and the achievement of the objectives.

Some people think that lesson plans severely restrict teachers’ creativity. Do you agree? Explain your answer.I disagree with this because teacher can demonstrate their creativity through systematization of their pedagogical practice: lesson plans, educational projects, Journals about their pedagogical activity, teaching sequences or learning resources portfolios. Additionally, it’s relevant that professors share with their colleagues, successful experiences in the classrooms.  Teachers demonstrates their creativity in the designing of innovative resources, in the application of new teaching approaches,  in the planning activities relevant to the student’s interests. These advances are evident through the publication of documents related with the pedagogic experience.