Who is the Busiest? A Task-based Lesson Plan

Luke Houghton, Japan

Luke Houghton (BA, MSc) is currently a teacher in Fukushima, Japan, and has been teaching English at schools and universities around the UK, Spain, Japan and Saudi Arabia since 2007. He is currently studying for an MA in TESOL. E-mail: lukehought@hotmail.com

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Introduction
Warm-up
Pre-task
Task
Planning
Report
Language focus
Conclusion
Worksheets and powerpoint
References

Introduction

This lesson is a task-based learning plan for adults, specifically those working in an office or similar workplace, with low/intermediate level students in mind. The plan is modelled upon, amongst others, examples from the book doing task-based teaching (Willis, 2007).

If you are lucky enough to have access to smartboards or projectors in your classroom, a powerpoint including short listenings has been included below that can be used/modified as you wish. I recommend recording your own audio to suit your learner’s specific contexts, however. A key point is that these listenings contain natural speech patterns such as hesitations and non-communicative utterances.

Warm-up

Depending on the level of students, a warm-up from these two alternatives or teacher’s own ideas.

1. A charades game for different types of jobs (teacher would need to make labels/slides with job names on them)
2. A discussion about how student's work has been recently.

Pre-task

Hand-out the pre-task questionnaire, below.

1. Where were you born?
2. Where did you grow up?
3. Where do you live?
4. Where do you go to relax?
5. What do you do in your free time?
6. What did you do last night?
7. What is your favourite sport?
8. What time do you go to bed?
9. What time do you wake up?

Students should not do the questionnaire individually but in pairs, recording their partner’s answers. Once finished, they can swap papers so that they are holding their own answers.

Task

Put students into groups of three or four and explain to students that they need to decide who is the busiest in their group.

Let them know that they can use the ideas in the questionnaire but can add new questions as they see fit. For example, “how long is your lunch break?”

The teacher/students should assign a secretary in each group to record people’s answers.

Planning

Inform students that they are going to report their findings to the class. Use the numbered heads system to encourage all students to prepare fully.

• Numbered Heads: Give each student in a group a number/pair of numbers, and use a dice roll to decide who will speak for the group. Do not roll the dice until it is time for the speaker to present, however, meaning everyone feels the need to practise and prepare.

Report

Groups report back to the class about who the busiest person in their group is. This report can be in spoken form, or written form supported by a spoken explanation.

Language focus

The language this part of the lesson focuses on should of course be adapted to language points that have arisen across the lesson, but two language focus exercises follow and are included in the lesson powerpoint.

1. Students reform the questions from missing or removed words on the question reformation exercise.
   
   Where/you/born?
   Where/you/grow up?
   Where/you/live?
   Where/you/relax?
   What __ ___ do in ____ free time?
   What ___ you __ last night?
   What/your/favourite/sport?
   What time/you/go to bed?
   What ____ did you wake __?
2. Multiple choice game
   
   If you have access to a projector or smartboard you can display the powerpoint multiple choice game and play the game this way;
   
   The class listens to the short audio clip and chooses which of the questions it is an answer to. On the following pages, those groups who answered correctly can choose a destination/dish before the value of each choice is

Conclusion

The final activity/ies of the class depend entirely on the language points that emerged through the lesson, and the time remaining, so is best left up to the teacher in class.

Worksheets and powerpoint

Pre-task questionnaire

1. Where were you born?
2. Where did you grow up?
3. Where do you live?
4. Where do you go to relax?
5. What do you do in your free time?
6. What did you do last night?
7. What is your favourite sport?
8. What time do you go to bed?
9. What time do you wake up?

Question reformation exercise

Where/you/born?

Where/you/grow up?

Where/you/live?

Where/you/relax?

What __ ___ do in ____ free time?

What ___ you __ last night?

What/your/favourite/sport?

What time/you/go to bed?

What ____ did you wake __?

The powerpoint can be found HERE.

References

Willis D. and J. Willis (2007) Doing Task-based Teaching Oxford University Press

Please check the English Language course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary course at Pilgrims website.