Susan Susan

Reading lesson
Upper intermediate level

Description

Learning Skills lesson

Materials

Main Aims

  • To provide reading practice for general understanding (skim) and specific information (scan) using a text about nature of cities in the context of the environment.

Subsidiary Aims

  • To try to guess meaning of vocabulary by the context and to provide clarification of vocabulary related to nature of cities. Understand the form of some words and their pronunciation.

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (3-5 minutes) • To set lesson context and engage students

Send the Google Slides link through the chat so students can access it. Ask students: Could wildlife in cities be a threat? Why? Students have 2 to 3 minutes to talk about it. Elicit some answers from them, ask them what kind of animals do they think could be a a threat in their cities. If they mention pigeons, tell them we'll discuss more about them later on in the class.

Pre-Reading/Listening (7-9 minutes) • To prepare students for the text and make it accessible

Start with a matching exercise to see if they know the meaning of the words I'm presenting (glittering /ˈɡlɪtərɪŋ/, unsightly /ʌnˈsaɪt.li/, eat away at /iːt/ /əˈweɪ/ /æt/). First they will need to match the words with the meanings and then with the images. I won't give them the answers, I'll write down what they say and then go to the next slides to explain a little bit further Meaning, Form and Pronunciation. *Meaning: After the matching activity they probably already know the meaning, ask some CCQs to make sure (Is "glittering" adding water onto something? is unsightly" something nice to see? is "eat away at" going to eat outdoors?) *Form: What type of word are they (verb, adjective, adverb, noun, phrasal verb...). Are there root words and affixes added to these words / phrases? *Pronunciation: IPA symbols, syllables, stress, drill pronunciation.

While-Reading/Listening #1 (6-8 minutes) • To provide students with less challenging gist reading tasks.

I will send them the text through the chat so they can read it quickly (2 minutes) for a general understanding and the link to the Google Forms Activity 1 so they can answer the multiple choice question. Then I'll create Breakout Rooms and send them in pairs so they can discuss their answers for a couple of minutes before bringing them back to the Main room.

While-Reading/Listening #2 (11-13 minutes) • To provide students with more more detailed reading tasks so they can locate specific information in the text.

I will send them the text through the chat so they can read it again a little bit more in detail (5 minutes) for them to locate specific information and answer the multiple choice questions in the Google Forms. Then I'll create Breakout Rooms and send them in pairs so they can discuss their answers for a couple of minutes before bringing them back to the Main room.

Post-Reading/Listening (8-10 minutes) • To provide with an opportunity to respond to the text and expand on what they've learned

In this part of the lesson, we will work on a Speaking activity. I will pose some questions related to the proliferation of birds in their city, its risks and the role of citizens in this issue. I will send them to Breakout rooms for 5 minutes so they can discuss in pairs or small groups and then bring them back to the Main room so they can share their thoughts and what they came up with during the discussion.

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