Linguistics 577 - Lesson Plans: Speaking

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Speaking Lesson Plan

Voicing and Syllable Length ( Using Rubber Bands)

Teacher: Julie Madsen
Date: November 20, 1996

OBJECTIVES:

Students will be able to distinguish between "voiced" and "unvoiced" as well as be able to produce the sounds when asked.
They will also be able to understand and use short and long vowel sounds.
They will recognize final consonants by paying attention to the length of vowels.

MATERIALS:

Transparencies
Rubber bands
Practice exercises handout

TEACHING/LEARNING ACTIVITY:

WARM-UP: Tarzan of the Apes song using vowel sounds

INTRODUCTION: Introduce lesson by reviewing voiced and unvoiced/long and short vowels. Point out the correlation between the two.

PRESENTATION:

Use transparency to introduce first rule. Have students follow along with their rubber bands. Do pair practice using handout.
Introduce second rule. Do second pair practice using rubber bands. Students alternate asking questions 1-6 from handout.
Final consonant similarities. Point out words that end in stops and the similarities of final consonants. Indicate how vowel length differentiates between words with similar final consonants.
Practice saying and recognizing vowel length and final consonants in pairs.

EVALUATION/REVIEW:

Check comprehension by reviewing vowel length rules and usage. Have one student call out a word and another student indicate vowel length with rubber band.

Self evaluation:

With this lesson, I feel I was much too rushed. I needed to slow down and focus. There was more that I was trying to cover than I realistically could. I could have shortened the lesson and focused more clearly on the rules and it would have been more effective for a 10 minute lesson. I needed to shorten the warm up song to one or two verses. That would have given me more lesson time. In a 60 minute class, the warm up can be a little longer, but for my short 10 minutes, the warm up was too long. Another idea would be to have the warm up be distinguishing between voiced and unvoiced sounds instead of the song.

I also failed to give the class the level of the students and perhaps failed to state the objectives as clearly as I could have. In this case, I could have shortened the practice time to accommodate the short lesson time. In an actual teaching situation, the practice time would depend on how quickly the students seemed to catch on to the concept presented.

In this type of lesson, students really need to clearly understand and demonstrate their knowledge of the skill they are learning. I should have slowed down and explained both the rules and the practice instructions more clearly. I did some random evaluation of the students both during the time they were practicing as pairs and as a whole class, however, I could have been more thorough in my evaluation to make sure that each student clearly understood and could use the concepts presented.

I think the rubber bands are good visual aides, but they can be a distraction too. I really should have collected them at the end of the lesson. Also, the class seemed extra jittery. I'm not sure if it was due to my own nervousness and rushing or if they were just having a restless day. It was probably a combination of the two, but if I had been more focused, I could have helped them to focus more.

REVISED LESSON PLAN:

LESSON: Voicing and Syllable Length (using rubber bands)
TEACHER: Julie Madsen
PROFICIENCY LEVEL OF LEARNERS: Advanced beginners through intermediate
AGE: High school age and above

OBJECTIVES:

Students will be able to distinguish between "voiced" and "unvoiced" as well as be able to produce the sounds when asked.
They will also be able to understand and use short and long vowel sounds.
They will recognize final consonants by paying attention to the length of vowels.

MATERIALS:

Transparencies
Rubber bands
Practice exercises handout

TEACHING/LEARNING ACTIVITY

WARM-UP:

Tarzan of the Apes song using vowel sounds -use song to refresh students memories as to what vowels are.

INTRODUCTION: Introduce lesson by reviewing voiced and unvoiced/long and short vowels. Point out the correlation between the two.

PRESENTATION:

Use transparency to introduce first rule. Have students follow along with their rubber bands. Do pair practice A using handout. Make sure students fully understand that a long vowel sound is followed by a voiced syllable and a short vowel sound by an unvoiced syllable. (i.e.: rise and rice)
Introduce second rule (note). Do pair practice B using rubber bands. Students alternate asking questions 1-6 from handout. Check to see that students clearly associate verbs with longer vowel sounds and nouns with shorter vowel sounds when comparing two words from the same root. (i.e.: prize and price)
Final consonant similarities. Point out words that end in stops and the similarities of final consonants. Indicate how vowel length differentiates between words with similar final consonants. (i.e.: bad and bat)
Practice saying and recognizing vowel length and final consonants in pairs. Refer to the words that end in stops on the transparency. (note: the transparency could also be photocopied and used as a handout.)

EVALUATION/REVIEW:

Check comprehension by reviewing vowel length rules and usage.
Have one student call out a word and another student indicate vowel length with rubber band.
The students will use the words they practiced during pair work.

APPLICATION:

Have students practice words aloud at home using the long and short vowel sounds and paying special attention to voiced and unvoiced.
Ask them to come up with four or five examples of their own that fit the rules given in class.

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