Session 3
Interaction and communication
Objectives
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To use correctly the past form of the verb to be and can.
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To understand and apply the rules to create the regular past simple
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To identify and use the irregular verbs
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To develop cooperative skills
Activities
1.
Before entering in class, play the entrance tickets activity in which the teachers asks about some content and students have to answer correctly in order to enter.
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It could be a great opportunity to do it with the verbs, so show them a flashcard with a verb in present and ask them the past.
Time: 5'
2.
Time: 5'
3.
Play the chain game again to foster interaction among them and to review the topics studied such as the past tense of verbs.
Time: 10'
4.
Play the story sparkers game to make them practice the past tense and to foster oral skills.
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Story Sparkers
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To play this game you need the cards in which there are 4 words (situation or place, feeling, time when it happened and a verb). The game consists on inventing a sentence that includes all the elements written on the card. In addition, as the card indicates, the time can be past (two days ago, last summer, etc) therefore the verb used must be in past. This way, they have to think about past simple, learn new verbs and consolidate the ones they already know and to form a coherent sentence.
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Put an example before starting the game to clarify doubts and for students to realize better what they have to do.
Time: 10'
5.
Play the talk dices game to foster communication among them and practice oral skills too.
Time: 10'
6.
Play the childhood memory game to foster communication among them and practice oral skills too. This game is played in pairs or groups of 3. It consists on telling a memory (so, using the past tense) to the others of your life.
Time: 10'
Do the routines as usually.
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So the student performs as the teacher and ask to his/her classmates about the date, season and weather with the corresponding questions:
What's the weather like today?
What month is it?
What's the date today?
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Further Extension
All games can be adapted to circumstances and time. If one game is more challenging or motivating than others, it can be played more than one round.
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Also, there is a nice ice-breaker game called 2 truths and 1 lie, that consists on telling 3 things about yourself. 2 must be true and 1 must be false, invented, etc. As a condition, you could say to form the sentences in the past simple.
Assessment tools
It is important to observe the students work collaborative and autonomously. From these observations, the teacher can see who follows the rules, is active and participative with the tasks, etc.
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Obersvation during their conversations and interactions is also key for the teacher to know who struggles more, which are the topics that need more work, etc.​
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The main goal of this session is to practice the content through communication and interact with peers. Accuracy when speaking is not the objective, but trying and making an effort to talk in English when expressing thoughts, ideas, memories, feelings, etc.
Materials
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Entrance tickets
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Chain game cards​
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Story sparkers game​
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Talk dices​
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Classroom Management
This is a half group session.
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n this session students are required to work in groups or pairs depending on the activity and kind of autonomously sometimes following the instructions provided by the teacher .
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The teacher however, will also provide a brief explanation of each game at the beginning and about the materials that they will need to use,
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To control the time for each part of the session it would be advisable to set a timer that indicated when to change and move forward to the next experiment. Nonetheless, it is okay to repeat more than once one game or not to play all of them.
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Attention to diversity
In order to provide some scaffolding on the language it is important to:
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Provide materials and different resources to look for unknown words
Also, there are other factors to take into account and ideas that could work:
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Create heterogeneous groups.
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Give simple and concise tasks.
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