Majid M.

Al-Humaidi

Lesson Plan 2: Reading Skill

Level of Students: Level-two students of the College of Languages and Translation

Number of Students: 50 students
Language Skill(s): Reading and speaking
Language Component(s): Vocabulary and pronunciation.
Teaching Aid(s): Black or white board
Lesson Objective(s): By the end of the lesson, students are expected to develop their
reading comprehension and be able to read for gist. They are also expected to acquire
new vocabulary items on lifestyle, fads, and trends, and be aware of differences
between cultures in regards with lifestyle.
Activities/Tasks: Comprehension questions and T or F questions.

Introduction
The aim of the lesson is to enhance students' ability to read for gist and develop their
reading comprehension. It also involves acquainting students with new vocabulary
items and seeks to boost the ability of guessing the meaning of vocabulary items from
context. They will also be introduced to ideas relevant to how lifestyles change
rapidly, the reason for this, the difference between fads and trends, and how the
business sector makes use of such phenomena. There are certain things that ought to
be taken into consideration when planning for such a lesson:
1. The number of students is large and the time is limited. Hence, every minute is
valuable, and the whole students' involvement is crucial.
2. Students are first year students in the College of Languages and Translation;
thus, the teacher's input should be comprehensible in order to become an
intake on the part of the students.

3. The aims are various and should be achieved through smooth shifting between
activities and language components. It shall include reading, vocabulary, and
pronunciation.

Procedures
1. Warm up: The ideal way of starting a lesson is to have a quick revision of the
previous lesson to maintain the sequence of presentation especially if the new lesson
depends on the previous one. As this is not within the range of this lesson plan,
previous lesson revision will not be dealt with comprehensively. The revision may
include: content, vocabulary, patterns, spelling, and other language components.

2. Discussion: The main passage is about lifestyle and trendspotting. Students are to
be asked to prepare for the lesson and check the meaning of words they do not know
in the dictionary or get it from context. This would both save time during class and
enhance the awareness of students and self-centered initiatives. To encourage them to
do so, the teacher should randomly ask students different questions about the topic
and assign credit marks for those who show readiness for the lecture. The discussion
should go beyond the range of the passage itself and discuss the topic generally. That
is, in the case of this lesson, the class should also discuss issues relevant to the topic
(i.e. lifestyle, fads, and trends) in the students' own context. The discussion may
include questions such as:
- Is lifestyle changing in your country/city/village? Why?
- If so, is it similar to that taking place in other countries?
- Do you think that rapid change in lifestyle is a global phenomenon?
- Are there any certain fads or trends you may depict in your environment?
In this discussion the teacher should elicit the use of potential new vocabulary items
and give immediate feedback on pronunciation. In case of observed difficulty in
pronouncing a certain word, repetition, collectively and individually, might be useful.
At the end of the discussion, the teacher may brief the class on the main theme in an
interesting way to make the reading part appealing.

4. Explanation of difficult vocabulary items

A vocabulary preview exercise is provided in the textbook. The words and phrase
presented in this task almost cover all potential problematic vocabulary items in
passage. Students should be involved in giving the meanings of these words
through definitions, synonyms, or antonyms. As they had a reading assignment, it
should be expected that they be aware of all or most of them either through the
context or through consulting a monolingual dictionary, which should be their
primary resort when compared with a bilingual one. Again, students are to be
chosen randomly to participate in this task, and teachers' correction and feedback
are to be provided. Potential difficult words in the passage include the following:
Trendspotting: is the ability to identify a trend at an early stage.
Urban: relating to city.
Fabric: a material that resembles clothes.
Gourmet: (Adj.) [only before noun] producing or connected with very good food
and drink.
Leisure: time free from work or duties.
Fad: a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated eager.
Essence: central quality.
Slang: informal vocabulary.
Consumer: to spend wastefully.
Competitive-edge: an advantage.
Popular: common.
Irrational: incapable of reasoning/defective in mental power.

When a large number of the class fails to understand the meanings through definition
and/or synonyms, translation may be provided. However, it is not recommended, at
least at this stage, to write down the definitions on the board for there is a postreading exercise on vocabulary which requires students to provide meanings on their
own. The more effort it takes to learn a certain vocabulary item, the more lasting it
becomes.

5. Pre-reading questions/exercises
As students were asked to perform reading at home, there is no need for silent reading
for the sake of saving time. Students at this stage are supposed to be ready for some
pre-reading exercises to check their general understanding of the topic. This could be
achieved through asking comprehension questions on the text.

6. Reading Process
The teacher reads the passage aloud while students listen. After that, a number of
students chosen randomly rather than rotationally should be given the opportunity to
read aloud one paragraph at a time. After each paragraph, the teacher may raise
different comprehension questions and all students should be involved. For example:
Paragraph A:
What three things mentioned are part of style?
What are the changes in clothes mentioned?
Paragraph B:
What does the writer think about the change of fads?
Paragraph C:
What was so good about Green Peace swimsuits?
Is it still available?

7. Post-reading questions/exercises
Two post-reading exercises are presented in the chapter. If there is time left, students
should be given time to work on them individually. After that, the teacher answers
them along with the students. Peer-correction in the case of wrong answers should be
encouraged. In case no time is left, these should be taken as homework, and the same
thing would be applied at the beginning of the following lecture. In case only little is
left, students should start the task at class and finish it at home.