A Sample Lesson Plan

Background Information

Difficulty Level: A2 (Waystage)

Age of Students: 11-12 Years

Lesson Topic: On the Phone

Duration of Class Period: 45 Minutes

Language Skills: Listening and Speaking

Lesson Language: The lesson is to be conducted mostly through sustained L2 use. The teacher
turns to the students' native language only when required to ensure comprehension.

Learners' Background Knowledge: They read and spoke on the definition of communication
and the types of communication. They also practiced the greeting types.

Materials Needed: A poster on greeting types, flashcards related to the ways of communication
(make a phone call, send an email, talk face to face, text a message, use social networks and
write a letter/postcard), a semantic map (also called a bubble map), index cards, PowerPoint
slides to introduce the topic ''On the Phone'' and the associated vocabulary words, worksheets,
CD with the listening material, handout, boxes/cards for role-play, KWL chart and pen/pencils

Aim: Students will make a simple phone call asking and responding to questions.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the class, the learners will

 practice the vocabulary words related to the ways of communication.

 recognize the words related to the phone conversations.
 follow a phone conversation.
 identify the specific message in a listening text.
 write short and simple phone conversations.

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Sequence of Activities

Warm-up/Review (5 minutes): ''Greeting A-Round''

At the beginning of the class, the teacher greets the students in the target language. To this end,
she sets up an activity called ''Greeting A-Round''. Firstly, she reviews what is involved in a
friendly greeting (fist bump, gentle handshake, high-five, hug, and wave hello). If necessary,
she models and practices the basics of a friendly greeting. Then, the teacher carries out the
following instructions:

 Students stand in a circle and count off by 2s.

 The 2s step forward to form an inner circle.
 Students in each circle hold hands with their neighbors (1s with 1s, 2s with 2s).
 Each circle moves in a different direction while students say the following chant:
Round I go
Friendly I’ll be
Round and round
What do I see?
I see a friend
Looking at me!
 When the chant finishes, both circles stop moving and students release their hands. The
students in the inner circle (the 2s) turn around to face the students in the outer circle
(the 1s).
 Students in the inner circle greet the student they are facing in the outer circle and vice
versa.
 Students hold hands again (1s with 1s and 2s with 2s), move around in a circle, and
repeat the chant. The process continues for two or three rounds.

In short, the students repeat a simple chant while moving around in two concentric circles. At
the end of each chant, the students pause to exchange a friendly greeting with the student in
front of them. This greeting provides a chance for the students to greet—and be greeted by—
many different classmates. The students may sit in their seats together with the ones they have
greeted.

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''Hot Seat''

The teacher has the students play a game called Hot Seat (sometimes known as Back to the
Board). This game aims to:

 consolidate the previously-learned words,

 review and recall the previous lesson,
 engage the students and
 activating the students into using their wider vocabulary to describe keywords.

Steps of the game:

1. Organize the students into two teams by giving the instruction to count up to five.
2. Put two chairs at the front of the class, facing away from the board.
3. Invite one person from each team to take the 'hot seat', with the rest of the group standing
around them.
4. Choose a word from the Vocab Bag and write it on the board, making sure the seated
students do not look but the rest of the team can.
5. The standing students must give a definition for the word (without using it) that will
enable the student in the hot seat to correctly guess it. The first student to guess the word
wins one point for their team.
6. Rotate the students around after every word, so that every student has their turn in the
hot seat.
7. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
8. The winning group is acclaimed.
9. The vocabulary items to practice are: make a phone call, send an email, talk face to
face, text a message, use social networks and write a letter/postcard.

After the game is concluded, the teacher hangs the flashcards on the board and encourages the
students to repeat them. If the students make a mistake, the teacher of this class has the students
self-correct by asking them to make a choice between what they said and an alternative answer
she supplied. Also, the teacher repeats what a student has just said, using a questioning voice
to signal to the student that something was wrong with it.

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Introduction (5 minutes): Musical ''Guess the topic''

The teacher tells the students that they are going to talk about one of the ways of
communication. The teacher employs three songs which in some way reference the topic of the
lesson. The songs are:

 Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe (But here's my number, so call me maybe)
 Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line (Telephone line, give me some time)
 The Kinks - Party Line (Hello, who's that speaking, please?)

The teacher plays the students a relevant segment of the song (where something about the topic
is referenced). She asks them to write notes on what they hear, compare notes, and guess the
topic of the lesson. If the students have difficulty, the teacher guides them with questions to
help them focus on the relevant features of the song. Then the students are given a transcript
and asked to underline the words related to the topic of the lesson. To conclude this stage, the
teacher explains the aim of the new lesson and relates it to the learners' lives. The songs may
be played twice depending on the students answers.

Presentation (10 minutes): ''iPartners on Speed Dial''

Before starting this stage, the students are divided into pairs through an activity called ''iPartners
on Speed Dial''. The students move about the room and choose three other students to put on
speed dial for partnering. When it’s time to partner up for the activity, the teacher tells the
students to take out their phones, calls out a number, and the partners are chosen. For example,
she says, "You will work with contact number two."

''Brainstorming & Mind Maps''

The teacher opens a Powerpoint to introduce the topic entitled ''On the Phone'' and the
associated vocabulary words. The teacher shows the first picture on the board, using OHP. The
teacher asks, "What do you see in the picture?''. At this point, she models brainstorming and
mind mapping. The teacher elicits the target vocabulary from the students through questioning
strategies. She lets the students explain briefly what context this word entails. Afterward, the
students are asked to brainstorm and mind-map on their activity sheets for each picture shown
on the board. The teacher checks the students understanding ''What will you do?''. The teacher
sets the time and starts the activity. During the activity, she monitors the students and gives
help if necessary. For each picture, the teacher asks some students to come to the board and
draw their mind-map, focusing on the relationships between the words, the topic, and sub-

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topics. While they are doing this, the teacher helps them out with spellings and pronunciation.
Also, she adds any important words which she thinks are missing. Afterward, the teacher elicits
the content of the listening material. At the end of this stage, the teacher has the students repeat
the words chorally/individually. This stage aims to:

 set up the context,

 activate background knowledge and schemata,
 elicit the meanings of the vocabulary items and
 create an interest in the listening material.

Practice (10 minutes): (The teacher places a phone on the front table. It will be used later.)
The students listen to the following dialog carefully. They listen to the dialog twice.

Mr. Parker: Hello, the Parker family.

Alyssa: Hello, this is Alyssa calling. Is Elena there?

Mr. Parker: Hang on a minute; I’ll get her. Elena! … I guess she’s not at
home. Would you like to leave a message?

Alyssa: Could you tell her that we’ll meet up at 6 o’clock at the Café
Goriat, please?

Mr. Parker: Meet up at six o’clock at the ... Can you say the name of the
café again, please?

Alyssa: Café Goriat.

Mr. Parker: Café Goriat. Got it. Goodbye!

In the first half of this stage, the teacher tells the students ''Now you will listen to the dialog
between Mr. Parker and Alyssa again. What are they talking about? ''. The teacher elicits
''Meeting in a cafe''. Then she sets up the activity ''OK. What is the message in this phone
conversation? Listen to them again and write down the message''. The teacher writes the
question on the board and checks the students' understanding. Then, she plays the audio player
and monitors if the students are able to catch the message. After a short time, she stops the
audio player and has the students check their answers in pairs. The teacher plays the audio
player again and uses pausing strategy if necessary. Then, she has the students check their

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answer. Finally, the teacher elicits the answer. To this end, the teacher asks the students to come
to the board and write the message on the board.

In the second half of this stage, the class experiences a repetition drill where their task is to
listen carefully and attempt to mimic the teacher's model as accurately as possible. First, the
teacher has the whole class repeat each of the lines of the dialog after her model. They repeat
each line several times before moving on to the next line. After the students have repeated the
dialog several times, the teacher gives them a chance to adopt the role of Mr. Parker while she
says Alyssa's lines. Next, the class and the teacher switch roles to practice a little more, the
teacher saying Mr. Parker's lines and the class saying Alyssa’s. Then the teacher divides the
class in half so that each half gets to try to say on their own either Mr. Parker's or Alyssa's lines.
The teacher stops the students from time to time when she feels they are straying too far from
the model, and once again provides a model, which she has them attempt to copy. To further
practice the lines of this dialog, the teacher has all the boys in the class take Mr. Parker's part
and all the girls take Alyssa's. Finally, the teacher selects two students to perform the entire
dialog for the rest of the class. When they are finished, two others do the same.

Production (10 minutes): The teacher divides the students into pairs and gives them some
cards. The students are expected to read the information in the boxes and make a phone call.
The boxes/cards are given below:

Student A: You are calling a friend. You
want to talk to your friend, but his/her
brother/sister answers the phone. Your
friend is not available at the moment.
Leave a message for him/her.
Student B: You are at home and your
home phone rings. A friend of your
brother/sister is calling. He/ She wants to
talk to your brother/sister, but he/she is not
available at the moment. Ask the caller to
leave a message and write down the
message.

The teacher does not intervene but observes and assists if necessary. The teacher monitors the
groups and encourages the students to use the target language, and answers any questions the
students may have. At the end of this stage, the students role-play and the classmates together
with the teacher offer feedback.

Wrap-up (5 minutes): The teacher shows a list of vocabulary words they discussed and asks
the students to choose three and write them down. The teacher gives the definition of a random
word from the list, but she does not say the word itself. If the students think they have the word

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she defined, they tick it. The first student to tick all three words they had chosen shouts BINGO
and wins the game (Play Bingo!).

Assignment: The students will keep expanding their visual dictionary by including new
vocabulary items from this unit (Pictionary).

Assessment:

1. KWL Strategy (Alternative Assessment): This strategy is based on the following

questions:
a) What do I know?
b) What do I want to know?
c) What I have learned?

The first two sections of the grid are completed by the students before the topic is
introduced, whereas the last one is to be completed right after the topic is presented.

2. Testing (Formal Assessment): The teacher gives the students a comprehensive

worksheet to complete at home. This worksheet includes:
a) multiple choice items
b) short answer items
c) gap filling items
d) matching
e) word order/sequencing
f) sentence transformation & paraphrasing & restating
g) translation

Apart from these issues addressed above, the teacher supports the students by saying ''Good
job!'' or ''Well done!''. The participation of students in the activities is a significant criterion for
assessment. This lesson stresses the necessity of taking an active role in instructional activities.
Questions and required tasks will pave the way for a more detailed assessment of the students'
production.

References

 https://ngl.cengage.com/infocus/index.php/2017/08/08/vocabulary-games/
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7j-2xteKB4
 https://eltplanning.com/2015/06/22/35-ways-to-introduce-your-lesson-topic/

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 https://genius.com/Carly-rae-jepsen-call-me-maybe-lyrics
 https://genius.com/The-kinks-party-line-lyrics
 https://genius.com/Electric-light-orchestra-telephone-line-lyrics
 https://eltplanning.com/2015/06/22/35-ways-to-introduce-your-lesson-topic/
 https://englishpost.org/pre-listening-activities/
 https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/genia-connell/15-quick-and-creative-
ways-group-and-partner-students/

 https://www.eslfast.com/robot/topics/employment/employment08.htm
 https://elt.oup.com/student/champions/level01/level01_dialogues/dialogue06?cc=tr&s
elLanguage=en
