Lesson Plans

Abbi Freeman

Abbi Freeman's lesson, based around a book review taken from Amazon.com impressed tutor Vicki Anderson as being well-organised, very learner-centred and communicative...

Note the glossary provided (foreground), together with phonemic script.

Taking it step-by-step

Essentially, the task the students had to perform at the end of Abbi's lesson (not a bad place to begin planning a class) was to write a review of a book they had read, which was then to be posted on Amazon.

First, however, Abbi showed the class an authentic model review from Amazon - two in fact. "Basically, the lesson was breaking down and understanding the language, structure and content of a book review," Abbi explained afterwards. "It was a question of giving them all those elements step-by-step and then getting them to write their own."

The first model she chose was one with a clear structure, and was on a book that Abbi guessed they would have at least heard of, if not actually read - The Da Vinci Code.

To keep things simple, Abbi provided a glossary (visible in the image above) and, having cut and pasted the original, did a spot of editing to iron out some of the difficulties; it was, after all, only an Intermediate class.

A real audience

They didn't actually go to the Internet during the class? "No," Abbi explains. "In an ideal world they probably would, and when I feel more confident about setting things up, then I would probably do the class in the Internet Room, and actually then get the students to post their reviews on Amazon."

For a writing class, giving the learners a "real" task, and an "audience" (in this case the world wide audience on Amazon), is always a good idea. In fact, again to keep things simple, Abbi in fact posted the reviews they produced herself, a day or so later, "so that they could see their names actually there in print."

A second example

Having looked at the Da Vinci review, Abbi then gave out a second example, also from Amazon, "just so that we could focus on the structure", which she had cut up into paragraphs. In groups, the students then had to piece it back together again - what we call a "jigsaw reading" exercise.

After that, having seen the models, it was a question of having the students write their own reviews.

A successful lesson

Abbi felt that the lesson had gone well. "I was slightly worried at first," she says. "I'd really never done a writing lesson before and if they're writing obviously you can't hear the output. I like my lessons to be quite boisterous, with lots of noise - good noise, but noise nevertheless."

She also says that, at least at first, she "felt a bit like a spare part" while the students were engaged in writing their reviews. Don't be worried by the feeling that you are not in charge, that you are not the one doing the talking: relax, you are not supposed to be - at least not all the time.

While the learners are engaged in pairwork, or are working on their own, watch them: you'll soon see which ones need your help, and which ones are getting on successfully without your assistance. Provide the help, provide the language, when it's needed - and don't when it's not!

Why was it successful?

Abbi feels that it worked well, to some extent because she'd successfully led the learners to a point where they understood what they had to do, and felt confident they could do it - and then let go and let them get on with it. "If someone had told me, without all that help, just to write a book review," Abbi says, "I couldn't have done it." But, with the help provided, Abbi's learners were able to.

She also got the impression from the learners that they sensed that they were really using the language, and would be "putting it out there into the world", not just storing it away in a file somewhere, never to be read by anyone.

There was also quite a neat little ending to the lesson, too. Once they had produced their reviews, the students stuck them up on the walls, and went round reading each other's, deciding which books they might read.