CAMBRIDGE DELTA COURSE

PRACTICAL TEACHING ASSIGNMENT

RESOURCES AND MATERIALS

FOCUS ON

INTRODUCING CLASS READERS

“TALES FROM THE EAST”

Candidate’s Name: Paraskevi Andreopoulou

Centre Number: GR 108
Candidate Number:

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LESSON PLAN

Class Profile:
This is an Elementary class of adult students, the majority of whom come from
Afghanistan, Iran and the Congo. There are twelve students in it and the class has had
lessons since February 2008. They have finished using Cutting-Edge Starter course book
and have now moved to using Language-To-Go Elementary. The class meets three times a
week for a two hour session each time and so far, I have observed them three times and
taught them once.

The class consists of Anatolyi, a very strong student who, being ahead of others both
grammatically and lexically tends to assist his classmates with language problems at
times. On the same level, there are two more students, Ali and Victor, who, in my opinion
seem to have grasped the main linguistic features and vocabulary items and are able to
interact with their classmates and the T well.

In addition, when they are given instructions on how to perform a task, they are always
able to follow them immediately and they also bring to the class a great sense of humour,
enthusiasm and motivation. Shamel, from Iran, is also one of the stronger students. Fifie,
who is Victor’s wife, is a teacher of French, and participates in all activities well,
providing that they are geared to her schematic knowledge and culture. Fifie, specifically,
volunteers to speak her mind freely, with a rather heavy French accent using the TL.

On the other hand, Ahmed, Ashmatulah, Hassan, Sayed, Mahdi and Sieta (from Congo)
are rather weak learners who need prompting, guidance and clear instructions so as to
ensure their participation. They seem to have difficulty in reading and writing. Apart from
Sieta (from Congo), all the others are from Afghanistan or Iran (Ahmed).
Lesson Aims / Objectives
For Students
Primary Aim (s):
• To appreciate literature as means of
developing their reading skills
• to read for pleasure
• To enable Ss to practise their reading
skills (skimming, scanning, reading
for specific information); also, to
activate top-down and bottom-up
processing skills (Nuttal, 1996)
• To use class readers as means of
promoting out of class reading
Secondary Aim(s):
Grammar:
• To revise Simple Past.
Vocabulary:
• To expand their vocabulary
Listening:
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Evidence:
• By presenting one literary text from the
second chapter “Tenal Ram & the thieves”,
prompting Ss to read them in groups
• To provide them with texts culturally targeted
at them
• By providing them with different reading
sections cut up into strips, which they will be
able to rank them into the correct order, in
their groups and later, they read on for further
prediction and /or final check.
• By providing Ss with class readers “Tales
from the East” culturally targeted at them,
with a view to activating their schematic
knowledge and encouraging them to read out
of class
Grammar
• Ss will be given flashcards to narrate the story
in the past.
Vocabulary
• By answering wh-questions, both high and
low order ones, (Carter R. & Long M.N.
1991) given on a handout.
Listening:
 • To practise their aural abilities, to aid
listening comprehension and to
enhance their knowledge of the
structure of the language, ie.(syntax,
phonology) (UnderWood, 1989)
• By listening to the tape or T read out the plot
of the text for them to aid their listening
comprehension and enhance their knowledge
of the language

Speaking
Speaking:
• To enable Ss to retell the story in
• By being able to narrate the story in the past
their own groups orally referring
in a circle.
to the past and to predict the
ending of it

Source Aids / Handouts

1. Visual prompts downloaded from the website (well, thieves, gold and jewellery) to arouse
their interest and to activate their schematic knowledge targeted at the topic of crime (see
Appendix A’).
2. Three literary texts taken from the Readers “Tales from the East” simplified by West M,
Fielding K.J., and Parker B.M. Editions Longman Group Ltd 1997 to introduce Ss to the plot
of the story (see Appendices B’, G + F).
3. Cut up strips of paper to practise wh- questions, minimum vocabulary expansion (see
Appendix C) for both texts. Also flashcards with characters and verb actions in their infinitive
form to retell the story in a circle (see Appendix G).
4. In addition, cut up slips of paper from the “Into the well” text for Ss to put into the correct
order (see Appendix F).
5. The copies of the end of the story “Thank you!” (See Appendix I).
Linguistic Assumptions
The particular group of Elementary students has already covered places in a town/city and rooms
in the house, so, I presume that they must be familiar with the vocabulary of (garden, plants, water,
trees, bed), they are already familiar with the topic of My home Town and description of a place, so, I
do not think that they will face serious problems understanding the description of the scenery in the
country. They have already been taught home vocabulary, hence, I presume with photos as an aid,
they will be able to make out the meaning of the lexical item, hole.

They have also covered the verb forms of to –be, there is/are, possessive adjectives, object
pronouns, the Present Simple Form alongside adverbs of frequency, wh-questions, can/can’t for
ability, want to, going to and the Past Simple Form both regular /irregular; hence, I believe that they
will be able to understand the extracts receptively, perform the tasks accordingly and enjoy literature.

Anticipated Language Solutions / Remedies

Difficulties
1. Students might not have been
introduced to class readers before.
2. Students will definitely not be familiar
with receptive vocabulary in the
extracts.
3. Students are not aware of the
continuation of the story.
4. Students are not familiar with the end
of the story
1. They will be invited to predict and confirm
the plot through visuals; gradually they are
introduced to the idea with the two
paragraphs related to their culture, and with
careful selection and grading of activities,
hopefully, any fears will hopefully
disappear.
2. In the handout of concept check questions,
there will be a task expanding their
vocabulary storage possibly with synonyms,
antonyms, explanations, drawings; in pairs,
they will choose any two to use them in
context.
3. T will hand out strips of paper with the
continuation of the story, which they need to
reorder and find out what happens.
4. First, they will predict it based on the
evidence they have and in the end, T will
hand out copies of the end for them to read.

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Timetable Fit
This group of learners has already had previous contact with the Simple Past both regular (-ed)
and irregular forms +was/were); hence, I assume that they might be able to tell the continuation
of the story in a circle.

Furthermore, these students have covered the Present Simple Form along with adverbs of
frequency; for this reason, I think that they will be in the position of grasping the gist of the two
literary texts and perform successfully the tasks.
 jewels
well thieves

Board Plan(s)
Unknown Vocabulary & Pronunciation Read and find

Read and Find

Who?

Where?

What happened?

Vocabulary Expansion Through?

Hole ?

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Commentary:
The lesson was designed for an Elementary class of adult students. The target group
comprises 12 students who originate from the Middle East, Central Asia and the Congo
(Africa); with this particular goal in mind , the simplified reader extracts (Tales from the East:
simplified by West, M., Fielding , K.J & Parker B. M. 1977) to be taught were selected related
to the country or culture of the readers so as to avoid the cultural difficulties of the text, which
are numerous, real and proportionate to distance from an English-speaking location (Carter R,
& Long M, N 1991).

Hopefully, the selection of literary extracts will help students achieve an engagement with the
reading of them, the extent to which students carry with them beyond the classroom, an
enjoyment and love for literature which is renewed as they continue to engage with literature
throughout their lives.( Carter R., Long M., N 1991).

Reading a literary text is definitely not passive, but, a learning process from which students
add to their learning store of knowledge, which can be activated when reading further works of
literature(:ibid). Listening also to sections of the story that had been cut up earlier to pieces to
re-unite later, after the T has read them out, will definitely enhance students’ structure of the
language, ie. Syntax, phonology, for them to fathom out what is meant by the words
(Underwood 1989).

I believe that the common language teaching sequence of “presentation- practice-

reinforcement” (McRae J, 1991) will meet the needs of the students and hopefully will live up
to the expectations of my lesson plan.

Furthermore, using literature as a resource can be special for personal development and
growth, an aim being to encourage greater sensitivity and self-awareness and greater
understanding of the world around us (Carter R, & Long M, N. 1991).

In the beginning, my primary aim for activating students’ schematic knowledge and arousing
their interest is to present visual prompts demonstrating key-words that enable Ss to predict the
content; in this way, Ss need to see a point in reading, since we all live in a world dominated by
television, magazines, comics, pulp romantic and adventure stories (Carter R, & Long M., N.,
1991).

Ss skim their respective texts to provide an answer to a pre-reading stimulus; the texts offer a
narrative line which lend themselves better to reading aloud, allow marked patterns of action in
the early stages, are clearly and energetically signalled and they lead to a great sense of
involvement on the parts of the Ss (Carter R. & Long M. N. 1991).

List of References
Carter R. And Long M. N. “Teaching Literature” Longman Group UK Limited 1991

Duff A. & Maley A. “Literature” c Oxford University Press 1990

McRae J. “Literature with a small “l” Prentice Hall Monographs, First Published1991 by
Macmillan Publishers Limited

Nuttal C., “Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign language” Heinemann 1996

Underwood M. “Teaching Listening” Longman Publications 1989

Readers

West M. , Fielding K. J. & Parker B. M. “Tales from the East (simplified Level 1)” This
Edition c Longman Group Ltd 1977

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APPENDICES
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Page 13
Page 15
B: Read the text and confirm your predictions:

a. Tenal Ram and the Thieves

The first man said, “Tenal Ram and his wife go to

bed at nine o ‘clock”.

“We can wait for two hours after that”, said

the thief. We can make a hole in the wall at
eleven o’ clock. Then, you go through the hole in
the wall and open the door.”

“Does Tenal Ram have much money in the well?”

asked the first man.
“Oh, yes!” said the other man. “He has a lot
of gold and jewellery, but, in a box in his house.
He’s very rich.”

“Ha! That’s good!” said the first man.

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(What can the thieves do at eleven o’ clock?)

Read and find

Who?

Where?

What
happened?
Which picture is........

Hole?

Which is through?

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F.1.Tryto put this text below into the correct order (into the well-
continuation of the story):

He said “They took my friend Ali’s gold and

jewels”

Perhaps they will come to this house

“We can put our gold and jewels in a good

place where they can’t find them”

“Bring me the box and some stones”, he said

 to his wife.

“I will put this box where the thieves will

never find it!”

“Now, I will close the box”, he said. “Help me

to carry it!”

Tenal Ram and his wife carried the box and

threw it down the well.

Then, they went back to the house, with no

lamps and waited.

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G1.Into the well (the original continuation of the story- not to be distributed- T
reads it)

He said, “I have heard that there are some thieves in this place. They took my
friend Ali’s gold and jewels (1)”.

“Oh! They may come to this house”, said his wife (2).
“Yes, they may come here. We must hide our gold and jewels in a good place
where they can’t find them. Bring me that box (3)”.

So his wife brought the box. Tenal Ram showed her the stones and said in her
ear;
“Those are our gold and jewels”. Then, he said, “Bring me the gold, and I’ll put
it in this box (4)”.

She brought some stones. Tenal Ram put the stones in the box (5).

He said, “Ha, ha! I’ll hide this box where the thieves will never find it! Bring
me the jewels!”

She brought some more stones.

“Now, I’ll shut the box”, he said. “Help me to carry it (6).”

Then Tenal Ram and his wife carried the box and threw it down the well (7). It
made a great S-P-L-A-S-H when it hit the water.
Then they went back to the house. They put out the lamp, and waited (8).

G.2. Now retell the story in your circle about:

1.They took my friend Ali’s gold

and jewellery.

2.They came to his house.

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3. “We put our gold and
jewellery in a good
place where thieves
didn’t find them”

4. 4. “Tenal Ram’s
woman brought the
box and some stones”
 5. “I put this box
where the thieves
didn’t find it!”

6. Tenal Ram and his wife

carried the box and
threw it down the well.

0. They went back to the

house, with no lamps
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and waited.
 I. “Thank you!”(to be distributed at the end of class)

The first thief said, “They have put their box of

jewellery and gold in the well! They have gone to
bed. They ‘ll soon be asleep”.

After some time, Tenal Ram looked out of the

window. He saw the thieves at the well.

The first thief said, “We must get the water

out of the well. Then, I’ll go down and get the
box”.
So they began to take up water from the well and
the other thief threw the water on the garden.

There was a lot of water in the well. They worked

all night. Daylight came and they were still working.

Tenal Ram opened the window. He called out:

“Thank you, my friends, for watering my garden.
That box in the well is full of stones, and the
Sultan’s men are coming along the
road...............................
Goodbye, my friends! Goodbye!.............
Thank you again!................

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