ARTICLE 1 :

Theme : The Significance of a lesson plan

Title of article : The Importance of lesson planning
Source : Internet

The Importance of lesson planning

With two years of EFL teaching, and a TEFL certificate, under my belt, I feel like I
am finally moving from amateur to novice in my ranking as a teacher. One of the
things about developing new skills is that you will occasionally have huge insights that
put a whole bunch of different experiences and lessons into context. Something will
click and then everything will make a lot more sense than it did before.
The insight Ive had most recently and the one I want to share with you today
is the importance of really good lesson planning. I have a lot to say on the subject of
lesson planning probably several posts worth but I think the first priority is
convincing you, the reader, that planning a lesson is not only worth doing, but worth
doing well.
First of all, a planned lesson is just better. Not all planned lessons are fabulous
and not all unplanned lessons are a disaster, but even a bad lesson will be less bad
planned, and even a great lesson can be greater with a plan. If you are good at teaching
unplanned lessons, you will be even better at teaching with a plan.
There are several reasons why a planned lesson is better. One of them is that
having a lesson plan helps you maintain focus. With a classroom full of children, with
their short attention spans and their natural desire to disrupt anything and everything, it
is very easy for a lesson to be sidetracked or derailed completely, and the best way for
you, the teacher, to steer the lesson back on course is if you happened to have brought
your map along with you. Sorry about mixing the train and car metaphors there.
Kids also notice when a teacher doesnt really know what to do. If you show one
sign of weakness, they will pounce. A primary school lesson is a battle of wills, and if
you blink you lose. A lesson plan is your best weapon in that battle. Kids respond
extraordinarily well to structure and regularity, and planning out your lessons gives them
that structure. Kids respond to dead air in a lesson to moments of uncertainty by
creating chaos. If you flounder at all in thinking about what to do, the kids will fill that

time by escaping from the mentality of the lesson and into the mentality of play from
which it is often impossible to recover.
A lesson plan keeps you on track and keeps the kids on track, but it also helps
outside the context of the lesson itself. Lesson planning lets you track progress and
problems. With planned lessons, you have actual paperwork of everything youve
taught, so you can refer back to it later. If kids arent learning a particular point, you
know which lesson plan to amend, which helps you learn from your own mistakes and
missteps. If kids learn something really well, you can look at that lesson and figure out
what about it really worked. You can start to learn to be a better teacher overall and for
each particular class, and you dont have to do it via memory.
Lesson plans let you show off what youve taught. Theyre good for your teaching
portfolio, they make great blog posts, theyre great for showing other teachers, your
director, other TLGVs, your parents, etc. what you do with your time. If you have a really
great one, you can share it and others can benefit. People will think you are magically
organized.
But perhaps even more important than showing off to others is showing off to
yourself. Lesson plans give you not just a sense of accomplishment, but something
tangible that reflects that accomplishment. A lesson plan from a lesson that went really
well is like a personal award certificate. And since lesson planning helps you keep track
of what works and what doesnt work, your lesson plans will get better and better,
feeding into and renewing that sense of success and accomplishment.
Research shows that these kinds of small accomplishments can increase your
motivation, your productivity, and your work engagement and satisfaction. So many
teachers struggle with motivation with not having real feedback from the kids or the
tests, its incredibly hard for us to know how we are doing but creating lesson plans
and then assessing how the lesson went not just the doing, but the documentation
are surprisingly powerful motivators.
Each lesson plan sets a discrete, achievable goal teaching the target
language for the lesson that you can aim for during the presentation phases and

judge the success of during the production phases of the lesson. This fits in perfectly
with the framework of creating discrete tasks, tracking accomplishments, and
celebrating small wins outlined in the article above.
I can tell you from experience that planning a lesson, having it go well, and then
feeling like Ive learned something in addition to teaching something is the biggest
source of my happiness and motivation as a teacher. When I dont plan lessons that
motivation drains away very, very quickly. Yes, theres a certain nebulous satisfaction
from having students greet you enthusiastically in the halls, or from sensing a general
overall improvement in English but that stuff is so subjective and hard to quantify that
it doesnt do much for you in the long months of the spring semester when youre
wondering why you ever decided to teach in the first place. If you need that daily boost
and I think we all do planning and assessing your lessons is the way to go.

And then, at the end of the year, instead of asking yourself if youve made a
difference, you can point to a big, giant stack of papers your years lessons that
show exactly the difference youve made.
Plan your lessons. It will do wonders for your students, and it will do wonders for
you both in and out of the classroom.

Source:
https://teachandlearnwithgeorgia.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/the-importance-oflesson-planning/

ARTICLE 3 :

Theme : Enrichment and remedial reading

activities
Title of article : Teaching Ideas for Remedial Reading and Highly Able Readers

Source : Internet

Teaching Ideas for Remedial Reading

Teaching remedial reading can be a repetitive process, which can be frustrating for both
the student and the teacher. Luckily, there are many resources such as free remedial
reading activities out that are both effective and provide variety.

Show That Everything Has a Name

Make sure that children understand that everything in the classroom has a name, and
that they understand what these things do. A good activity is to create labels for
everything in the classroom. This will help students to associate the written word with an
object, and encourage them to vocalize what it is they are wanting. If you avoid referring
to things as "this" or "that," then the students will begin to as well. This can lead to
different activities for different age groups and reading levels.
Younger students will appreciate the alphabet in their classroom, as it increases
familiarity and can also be used as a teaching tool. Capital letters work best, as they are
easier for students to recognize. Pictures that students create can also be labeled, or
students can work on a scrapbook activity. This can also lead to small field trips where
any written words are pointed out. For example, the word stop across a stop sign.
Older students can incorporate this into other activities. For example, in planning to
prepare something in the kitchen, students can work to create a grocery list and then
read the products to find what they are looking for at the grocery store.

Encourage Daily Reading

It's very important for children to be interested in reading, but this is often difficult when
children's reading levels and interest levels differ. A high-low reading list is a very good
resource to help find books that students will be interested in. Reading magazines and
newspapers are also great as they have many short articles, but make students feel

grown-up. Reading aloud is a great thing to do, though students will usually come
across words they don't know. A few tips for dealing with this are:

Encourage them to sound the word out completely, rather than

guessing after the first letter or syllable.

Have them read the entire sentence with the unknown word
omitted. Then ask them what word would fit in the blank.

Once they have figured out the correct word, have them read the
entire sentence again so they finish without struggling.

If students have particular trouble with sounding words out and resort to guessing, a
good activity is to write a list of nonsense words, and have them sound them out. This
teaches students to sound the entire word out, without guessing.

Focus on Comprehension
Comprehension is a major part of reading, and is an important thing to develop in
remedial readers. It is usually easier to start with a TV show or sports program before
introducing comprehension exercises to short stories. Comprehension should include
how to summarize, predict, context and monitor. Summarizing can be done by asking
students to retell a story in just a few sentences, predicting can be started by asking the
student what they think might happen next. Context is especially useful for students who
often find words they don't know. Teaching students how to use context clues (words
and pictures) is a great skill. Monitoring stops the problem of reading a whole story and
not knowing what happened. Students can learn to stop reading and check to make
sure they understand what they just read. If not, it is a good time to re-read the
sentence or passage.

Fun and Games

There are quite a few good websites that have free remedial reading activities. The only
caution is that some of these games are designed for younger children, so it is
important to encourage students who won't feel offended to use these resources.

Starfall is an excellent website. Their games progress from pre-reading, learning to

read, enjoying to read, and becoming confident in reading ability. There is also a
teacher's section which includes supplementary printable materials.
Scholastic has an incredibly comprehensive game section, and even has games
extending further into language arts, math, science and social studies. They have
games for all age levels, include pre-k to grade 12. I found that these games were
designed for a wide range of abilities and ages, which is great!
PBS Kids has some great games for younger children. Their games progress from
learning about letters, to learning about synonyms. All directions are spoken out loud.
FreeReading.net is a great resource for reading intervention for pre k to grade 6. The
website has a number activities, as well as resources for teachers. A further review of
freereading.net is also available.

Highly Able Readers

Storia is an excellent tool for differentiating instruction and creating challenges for the
highly able readers in your class. The range of extension opportunities with Storia is
considerable, and you can encourage your self-motivated, passionate readers to
construct their own projects.
Tips for Using Storia With Highly Able Readers
Encourage highly able readers who can infer the meaning of books that are beyond
their independent reading level to read e-books that are above their accuracy reading
level, but that match their comprehension level. Highly able students can access ebooks that are above their independent level, but on their instructional level, because
the Storia tools and features supply the instructional scaffolding. The combination of the
Storia read-to-me feature and the Storia dictionary will allow these students to focus on

the

story

while

more

easily

accessing

challenging

words.

Highly able readers should not be expected to read challenging books all the
time. Support your students choices, and let them know that it is okay to read easy"
books, too. Storia bookshelves that are organized by genre and topic, rather than by
level, encourage students to read for enjoyment, rather than limiting them to books
available at a certain level. Students should also be encouraged to include "easier" ebooks

in

their

personal

bookshelves.

Some of your most advanced students may have a strong emotional attachment to
reading traditional (paper) books. A student may be resistant to reading an e-book due
to his allegiance to and connection to print. Assure these students that they do not have
to abandon traditional books. At the same time, encourage them to broaden their
reading

diet

by

at

least

trying

e-books.

Keep in mind that just because students read quickly or at a high level, they shouldn't
be required to do reports, extension activities, or written responses about every
book. Such a requirement is likely to turn off even the most enthusiastic reader.

4 Extension Activities You Can Assign

Provide your advanced students with time to explore the enriched features in Storia.
Have them interact with the enrichment activities, listen to the read-to-me feature, and
use the notes and highlighting tools for instructional purposes. Suggest that they mentor
others in the use of these tools.
You can also assign one of these four extension activities.

Design an Activity

Challenge your students to create an activity for a Storia e-book. They can create this
activity in a Storia note that they leave on a page of a shared e-book.
Remind them about the range of possible extension activities they can create and about
the different activities appropriate for fiction and nonfiction.

Blurb an E-book

First, ask the student to read, review, and analyze the information and writing style of
the blurbs found on the back cover or inside flap of traditional (paper) books. Have them
think about what they liked or did not like about these blurbs, what information they
found most useful, and what styles worked best.
Have them use this analysis to write their own blurbs for Storia e-books. Encourage
them to make the blurbs professional by writing, revising, and editing the blurbs in a
word processing program. Ask them to cut and paste their final blurb into a note in a
Storia e-book that is part of a shared classroom bookshelf.
This will enable other students to benefit from the information and provide an
authentic audience for the writer.

Become a Book Expert and Annotate

Many excellent annotated childrens books are now available that have juicy tidbits
tucked into the margins. Before a student attempts to annotate e-books (or more likely,
short sections of e-books), make sure he has read a least one annotated book and he
understands the range of information annotations may include.
Have the student choose a favorite e-book and research the book extensively. He
should become an expert on the authors life, the story of the book's writing and
publication, the book's language features and allusions, critical opinions about the book,
and more.
Now encourage him to find appropriate places within the text to add, using the notes
feature, his researched information as annotations.

Make Your Own Audiobook

Show students how to record themselves reading a Storia e-book (or a short selection
of an e-book) using the recording feature on your Storia device or a separate digital
recorder. Students should practice reading the books aloud first, taking into
consideration pacing, expression, and how to make the reading sound as professional
as possible.
Save successful recordings onto your Storia device so other students can listen to the
homemade audiobook while reading the e-book.
This activity can be beneficial for all your students for fluency and oral language practice
Source:
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/special-ed-learning-disorders/103576-four-remedialreading-teaching-strategies/
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/differentiated-instruction-highly-able-readers

ARTICLE 2 :

Theme : Teaching and assessing language skill

Title of article : Goals and Techniques for Teaching Reading

Source : Internet

Teaching Reading
Goals and Techniques for Teaching Reading
Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of
the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication
situations. In the case of reading, this means producing students who can use reading
strategies to maximize their comprehension of text, identify relevant and non-relevant
information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.
Focus: The Reading Process
To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of reading rather than on its
product.

They develop students' awareness of the reading process and reading strategies
by asking students to think and talk about how they read in their native language.

They allow students to practice the full repertoire of reading strategies by using
authentic reading tasks. They encourage students to read to learn (and have an
authentic purpose for reading) by giving students some choice of reading
material.

When working with reading tasks in class, they show students the strategies that
will work best for the reading purpose and the type of text. They explain how and
why students should use the strategies.

They have students practice reading strategies in class and ask them to practice
outside of class in their reading assignments. They encourage students to be
conscious of what they're doing while they complete reading assignments.

They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and self-report their

use of strategies. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class
reading assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular
strategies.

They encourage the development of reading skills and the use of reading
strategies by using the target language to convey instructions and course-related
information in written form: office hours, homework assignments, test content.

They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to
another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a
different type of reading task or with another skill.

By raising students' awareness of reading as a skill that requires active engagement,

and by explicitly teaching reading strategies, instructors help their students develop both
the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter
beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for
communicative competence in the new language.
Integrating Reading Strategies
Instruction in reading strategies is not an add-on, but rather an integral part of the use of
reading activities in the language classroom. Instructors can help their students become
effective readers by teaching them how to use strategies before, during, and after
reading.

Before reading: Plan for the reading task

Set a purpose or decide in advance what to read for

Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed

Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall
meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)

During and after reading: Monitor comprehension

Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses

Decide what is and is not important to understand

Reread to check comprehension

Ask for help

After reading: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area

Evaluate overall progress in reading and in particular types of reading tasks

Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task

Modify strategies if necessary

Using Authentic Materials and Approaches

For students to develop communicative competence in reading, classroom and
homework reading activities must resemble (or be) real-life reading tasks that involve
meaningful communication. They must therefore be authentic in three ways.

1. The reading material must be authentic: It must be the kind of material that students
will need and want to be able to read when traveling, studying abroad, or using the
language in other contexts outside the classroom.
When selecting texts for student assignments, remember that the difficulty of a reading
text is less a function of the language, and more a function of the conceptual difficulty
and the task(s) that students are expected to complete. Simplifying a text by changing
the language often removes natural redundancy and makes the organization somewhat
difficult for students to predict. This actually makes a text more difficult to read than if
the original were used.
Rather than simplifying a text by changing its language, make it more approachable by
eliciting students' existing knowledge in pre-reading discussion, reviewing new
vocabulary before reading, and asking students to perform tasks that are within their
competence, such as skimming to get the main idea or scanning for specific
information, before they begin intensive reading.
2. The reading purpose must be authentic: Students must be reading for reasons that
make sense and have relevance to them. "Because the teacher assigned it" is not an
authentic reason for reading a text.
To identify relevant reading purposes, ask students how they plan to use the language
they are learning and what topics they are interested in reading and learning about.
Give them opportunities to choose their reading assignments, and encourage them to
use the library, the Internet, and foreign language newsstands and bookstores to find
other things they would like to read.
3. The reading approach must be authentic: Students should read the text in a way that
matches the reading purpose, the type of text, and the way people normally read. This
means that reading aloud will take place only in situations where it would take place
outside the classroom, such as reading for pleasure. The majority of students' reading
should be done silently.

Reading Aloud in the Classroom

Students do not learn to read by reading aloud. A person who reads aloud and
comprehends the meaning of the text is coordinating word recognition with
comprehension and speaking and pronunciation ability in highly complex ways.
Students whose language skills are limited are not able to process at this level, and end
up having to drop one or more of the elements. Usually the dropped element is
comprehension, and reading aloud becomes word calling: simply pronouncing a series
of words without regard for the meaning they carry individually and together. Word
calling is not productive for the student who is doing it, and it is boring for other students
to listen to.

There are two ways to use reading aloud productively in the language classroom.
Read aloud to your students as they follow along silently. You have the ability to
use inflection and tone to help them hear what the text is saying. Following along
as you read will help students move from word-by-word reading to reading in
phrases and thought units, as they do in their first language.

Use the "read and look up" technique. With this technique, a student reads a
phrase or sentence silently as many times as necessary, then looks up (away
from the text) and tells you what the phrase or sentence says. This encourages
students to read for ideas, rather than for word recognition.

Source:
http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/goalsread.htm