Lesson Plan: Group 4 Form: Subject-Verb Agreement

Instructors Date and No of students Grade/Level Length of Level of English Function

time lesson

1. Qurrat ul ain Raza October 29, 11th graders Pre –Intermediate Telling anecdotes
2. Humaira Khalid 2018 14 20 mins (K-12)
3. Altaf Hussain
Monday

Main Aims
Teaching students correct usage of Subject Verb agreement in narrating anecdotes.

Sub Aims
By the end of the lesson, Students will be able to:
1. Identify incorrect usage of Subject-verb agreement in anecdotes and conversations.
2. Construct creative anecdotes with correct usage of Subject-verb agreement.

Class profile
Students are eleventh graders of a prominent Karachi private school. This is their final year at school and they are going to appear in Cambridge Assessment
International Education English as a Second Language Exam in May 2019. They are mixed ability adolescent learners with linguistically diverse backgrounds,
ages varying from 15 years to 17 years and their level of proficiency is Pre- Intermediate. The size of the class is comparatively small with only 14 enrolments.
They are high strung, talkative, motivated and enjoy engaging lessons which requires them to work in groups. The medium of instruction is English, but code
switching may occur when the instructor or students refer to an anecdote related to their social context.

Previous Knowledge
The students are aware of conventions of subject –verb agreement. Their understanding of Simple present tense was reinforced in previous class through a
reading task along with its functions of narrating action. Students are engaged in collaborative work often and are graded for their participation in class, hence
they are accustomed to class discussions and often productively engage it them. They enjoy creative writing are aware of conventions of Narrative
compositions and account writing.

Rationale
Subject verb agreement though means conjugation of verb that matches the subject yet its usage in common place communication, despite being
indispensable, is often flawed. Subject-verb agreement unifies a sentence and makes it easier to understand hence is critical in all forms of writing and
communication especially in narratives. It serves the significant function of defining who did the action and what they did especially in narratives, anecdotes
and accounts.
It is crucial therefore to help students recognize correct employment of it. They also need to be conscious of incorrect application in commonplace usage such
as narrating stories, anecdotes, telling jokes and other everyday communication activities and correct them.

Teaching Aids/Materials
 Coloured flash cards, index cards, Chart papers
 Speakers & Cell phone
 2 Jars or paper cups
 Instruction Cards for all stages (PPP),
 Student Group List 1 for Practice stage & List 2 for Production Stage,
 Resource Box (Alphabet/Verb Tiles) for Practice stage, Worksheets on Resource Boards for practice stage.
 Cheeky Monkeys Award and The Best Tootler Award

Assessment and Evaluation

Students’ receptive listening skills will be assessed and reinforced when they identify correct and incorrect usage of Subject – Verb agreement
while their productive speaking skills will be gauged through their ability in creating and narrating funny anecdotes.

Language Function and System

Correctly employing subject verb agreement when telling jokes, stories and anecdotes.

Language Skills in Focus

Listening and speaking skills
Anticipated problems
Speakers might malfunction, Collection of worksheets might be time consuming, Students might take time in moving from one activity to other, some
students may not retain instructions if repeated once only (owing to limited time they may not be repeated)

Suggested Solutions
Backup phone and laptop will be used in case the speakers may malfunction, different instructors assigned for each group for collection and assessment will
help save time, stop watch and music cues will be used for more smooth transitions. Time will be marked off on the board. Instructions shall be pasted on the
class white board for each activity.

STAGE TYPE OF TIME PROCEDURE SKILL IN FOCUS STAGE AIM

INTERACTION FOR
EACH
ACTIVITY
WARM UP ACTIVITY 1.5 min Teachers ask students about their interest in comedy and sit- Listening To grab students’
coms. They enquire students about their favorite character attention, involve in the
from the famous British Sit-com Mind Your Language and lesson and induct them to
comment over their incorrect usage of grammar especially the topic of the day.
subject-verb agreement.
PRESENTATION 5 mins  Two of the teachers introduce the function through Listening and To help students infer the
(WHOLE CLASS role play. Performing a hypothetical situation between Speaking rules of SVA by identifying
ACTIVITY) the characters from Mind Your Language (Ali Nadim incorrect usage in
and Jamila). dialogues and through
 The third instructor will model identification of inference and prior
instances of subject verb agreement in the dialogue knowledge state the
and point out the incorrect usage. correct usage.
 The instructions would be pasted on the board too.
 Having modeled the response, the teachers will now
class to pay attention to Jamila’s dialogues while
continue the role play: a situation where Ali Nadim’s is
investigating his stolen lunch.
  By the end of the dialogues students identify the
number of instances were subject verb agreement was
employed and infer the rules that were flouted (did
not sound right to them)
 The teachers ask the class to enumerate rules flouted,
writes them on board, add to the missing information
and clarify partial understanding.

PRACTICE (GROUP 6 mins  The teacher will ask students if they like Scrabble and Speaking skills To implement form in
ACTIVITY) then divide the class into groups of four. context valise frame work,
 Each group will be provided with a scrabble board with encourage peer learning
an incomplete story pasted on it. Each sentence has a and collaborative work
verb missing and the students will have the through Mad Lib format
opportunity to use a variety of singular/ plural verbs to game exercise.
make different situations of a same sentence and
complete the story.
 The verbs (singular/plural) will be pasted on scrabble
tiles. Students can group verbs ridiculously with the
subject to make a funny story, but the verb must agree
with the Subject.
 The students will be given clear instructions regarding
the task and the same will be pasted on the white
board. They will be timed through a song that will play
in background. As soon as the song ends so will their
time.
 In the final two minutes the group leader will read
their completed story out to class, the winner will be
chosen by democratic vote. Winner to get the “cheeky
monkey award”
PRODUCT (GROUP 7 mins  The class has already been arranged for a group of Speaking skills To encourage students to
ACTIVITY) four in the previous activity, so the same setting will creatively apply subject
be utilized to same time. Teachers will reassign groups verb agreement by
by reading out names from a different group list. creating a 5-sentence
short story envisioning
  Teachers ask one member of each group to draw 3 real time function of the
Pink “Subject” (Subjects will be nouns, names of form in narration. To
members of class, collective nouns and 3 blue Verb provide them opportunity
Cards. to collaborate and create
 The students will be assigned the task of funny real-life situation.
collaboratively devising a 5-sentence story using all
the 6 cards assigned to them (3 subjects + 3 verbs)
 The instructions will be given verbally as well as pasted
on the board
 When the activity concludes the class votes for the
best constructed story. The group will be awarded
with “Best Tootlers Award”

FOLLOW-UP 0.5 min Teacher assign students the task to go through their old diary Speaking skills To reinforce students
entries or facebook posts and take out instances of where they understanding of subject
have made subject verb agreement mistakes and share them verb agreement
in the next class. conventions and help
them recognize the
common mistakes they
make and consciously un
do them.