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Teacher: Yoko Saito

Date: October 14, 1997

Time: 12:00 pm - 12:50 pm

Number of Students: 10

Place: JKHB 3045D

Duration of class: 50 minutes

Level: Listening/Speaking 2

The class I will be conducting is a second level listening and speaking group at the English Language Center. I will emphasize on communication through listening and speaking. The students are currently learning the grammatical principles for identifying locations. The main vocabulary, which are all new to the students, will consist of words like: right, left, next, front, behind, between, in, across, etc. In this class, students will practice identifying locations through listening. Then, gradually employ speaking skills in the drills.

• Students will be able to describe the locations accurately.
• Students will be able to draw a BYU campus map.

• a map of a town
• 2 paper dolls
• 15 paper buildings
• 4 markers
• 5 index cards (name of buildings written)
• 4 poster cards (to draw a map of BYU campus in a group)

1. Introduction (5 minutes)

For the warm-up, I show students the buildings and ask them to describe those buildings. For example, I will show them a hospital and ask, "What is this?". They will reply "It is a hospital", "People who are sick go there" or "Doctors and nurses are there to help people who are hurt", etc. This warm-up activity is to check to see if the students know the new vocabulary for the lesson.

2. Pre-activity (10 minutes)

I will show the students a building (i.e. church) and a paper doll. I will put a paper doll in front of the church and ask, "Where is she?" The students will respond, "She is in front of the church." Then, I will put her behind the building and ask the same question. I will continue with the same questions after putting the doll to the right and left of the building. If all of the students understand the practice exercises, then I will place another building (i.e. movie theater) behind the church. Next, we will use two buildings instead of a paper doll and a building. When I ask a similar question such as, "Where is the church?", I will expect students to say, "The church is in front of a movie theater", and so on. I will ask similar questions to each of the students. This activity will make sure if the students are able to identify a location of a building relative to another building.

3. Listening activity (15 minutes)

By using those same buildings, I would like the students to create a map on the blackboard. I will already have some buildings on the blackboard to start out with. I will pass around two buildings to each student. When I say, "There is a library behind the mall", I would like for a student with the library to come up and put it behind the mall. If someone makes a mistake, I will repeat the sentence. If one of the students still does not come forward with the right structure, I will ask someone else to come forward and help the person. I will continue this until the town map is complete. The students must listen carefully to what I say, otherwise, they will not be able to place the buildings appropriately on the blackboard.

4. Information gap activity (15 minutes)

After the map is completed, I will move on to both the listening and speaking practices. I will group the students into pairs and give index cards to one student in each pair. On each index card, there will be a name of a building written. The students with the cards must describe where those buildings are. I would like them to pretend that they are in the building and describe where they are standing at the particular moment. I will do one example before letting the students do the exercises on their own. I will have a card with ‘hotel’ written on it. I will look at the board and say, "The building I am in now is next to the library. I can see a police box across the street. Where am I?" If there is not enough information given, the class will not be able to identify the building. If this is the case, I will give the class more clues. After the example, I will ask two students to come up to the front and do the same. A person with a card describes where s/he is by identifying the buildings around him/her. The other person will listen to the partner and figure out where s/he is.

5. Application (5 minutes)

At the end of the lesson, I will put students in groups of 3 to 4 people. In each group, I will want a person who is new to BYU, a person who is not familiar with BYU campus. I will pass around a big white poster card and a marker to each group. On the poster card, I will want them to draw a map of BYU. The group must help the new person to draw the map by explaining which building is where. They will converse using the dialogues we learned during the lesson. "Where is HRCB?" "It is behind the library.", etc.

This is more authentic than using a map of an imaginary town on the blackboard. I assume that most people know where things are on campus, so there will be more interaction within the group. For example, if a student says, "The MARB is next to the Health Center", others will say "No, it isn’t. The Widstoe Building is between the MARB and the Health Center." Then, the student who will have made the mistake will say, "Yes, the MARB and Widstoe Buildings are separate buildings. I always thought the two buildings were connected!" If the description of the locations is given correctly, the new people will be able to draw the map accurately. After they complete the map, the new people can use it to get around BYU campus.

In my notes, there was a reminder that I needed to specify the locations such as front and back. I did not explain that identification of locations differs depending on the perceptions. For example, if John and Jenny are facing each other, John’s left side and Jenny’s left side will be different. Using the same reasoning, their front and back will be different. In the activity where I asked students to come up to the front and put the buildings on the blackboard, we had some conflicts. Some said the church is in front of the library while other students said the opposite. This happened because I did not specify how we were looking at the map. It is very difficult to explain locations on a blackboard because it is not three dimensional. While I was explaining the directions, I got confused and started to doubt myself. Then, I asked the students if I was right. When a teacher starts to lose confidence, students will lose trust in the teacher. Luckily, the students were native English speakers that they knew what I meant, but what if this class was a real ELC class? I needed to focus more on explaining directions.

Another thing I need to consider is the amount of instruction. I needed to give more instruction on activities. Although I did an example before the activities, some people did not know what I was doing. I asked Erica to describe where she was, she just said the name of the building. I wanted her to describe what she can see from the building, but she did not understand what I meant. I realized that I was not giving her clear instructions. In a real classroom situation, I need to choose words carefully so students will understand the instruction clearly.

I think I had good ideas for the described activities. These activities emphasized mostly on listening. However, more authentic situations may have helped the students to apply the lesson to real world situations.

1. The library is between Pizza Hut and the university.

2. The Video Rental Store is on right side of the hospital.

3. Wal-Mart is behind the university.

4. The Flower shop is in front of the hospital.

5. To the Left side of the hospital is a bank.

6. The Church is in front of McDonald’s.

7. Behind Pizza Hut, there is a bookstore.

8. The movie theater is between the flower shop and the post office.

Inform the students: When you are in the building, you are facing North. (Face a paper doll to North.) The students must speak from this perspective.

I can see the bookstore on the left and the library in the front. Where am I?

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