This lesson was taught to Grade 5 at Wenshan Elementary School. Although I estimated that the words in the vocabulary list were many and that it was the general expectation that students were expected to know how to pronounce them; how to spell them; and how to use them correctly in the existing sentence patterns, it was not a difficult lesson to teach. Nevertheless, to achieve all of this required a logical, or well –thought out approach. For, Grade 5 students were expected to pronounce the words, recognize them, and match them to pictures. Additionally, they were expected to know the differences between the singular and plural verb forms; between the function words used to indicate items near to the speaker, and items far from the speakers. Moreover, the lesson demanded that students read and understood the dialogues. The unit seemed to be asking a lot in terms of skills and knowledge to be gained. A lot was expected from the Grade 5’s.
The fact that I had already done a first lesson with the vocabulary did not obscure the fact that not all students had learned the correct pronunciation of each word or could easily spell them. Based on this knowledge, I thought that it was important to do a review of the vocabulary in this lesson. As the students were all saying the words at the same time, it masked those who were unsure or who mispronounced a word. At the same time, however, this choral response boosted the moral of those who were more competent learners at English Language.
It was necessary for me to find strategies to maximize learning opportunities for the students while finding ways to engage them to ensure motivation, hence, comprehension of the text and active participation in the class. As a result, I used student- pair groups, individual reading, questioning, finding contextual clues, the TPR method etc. to assist students. Were I to do this lesson again, I would have certainly included mixed –ability groups in the reading dialogues. This would have given more students the opportunities to learn from each other.
Marva老師著重透過圖片讓孩子們認識發音,雖然同學們對英文接觸不久,對英文發音生疏,因此需要花時間學習正確的音調。而Marva老師依舊不厭其煩地複誦教學,盼能讓學生能有完美流利的發音。