LANGUAGE LEARNING RESOURCES

PROFESSOR: Diego Fernando Macias

TASK DESIGN PROJECTAngela Viviana Rodriguez Montero2008

Context

Institution: Institution: Surcolombiana UniversitySurcolombiana University Language Level: Language Level: Basic (Students from Basic (Students from

different careers)different careers) Skills:Skills: Speaking, reading and writing Speaking, reading and writing Hours per week: Hours per week: 44 Number of students:Number of students: 30 30

STUDENTS’ PROFILE

There are 30 students in this group. They are between 19 to 24 years old. They study different careers so their interests are varied.

It is a heterogeneous group and their motivation varies from one student to another. Different activities are carried out in and outside the classroom in order to fulfill students´ expectations.

WEAKNESS

As students come from different backgrounds all of them have their own weaknesses and strengths. But what has been perceived during the development of the course is a strong weakness in the speaking skill mainly.

Rationale

The development of the four communicative skills in the interlingua program at the Surcolombiana University is a strong need that students have. It is important to work on different activities which help learners achieve the course objectives. Even though, there are not many opportunities in class to work on speaking activities due to time constrains. The teacher is required to cover a number of topics during the term and sometimes time is not enough.

Objectives

To encourage students to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings about current issues that affect real life.

To promote students’ interaction through the development of authentic communicative tasks.

To integrate different communicative skills to help students improve their English level.

TASKSTask 1: SPEAKINGThe teacher asks students to observe some photographs of the environment in

order to provoke thinking and reflection about environmental issues. Students are asked to describe what they see and what they know and think about these topics.

Then he/she asks them to work in groups of three and discuss the following questions in order to know the students’ background knowledge about the environment.

e. What do you know about the Environment?f. What is happening to our planet?g. What problems are we facing? Why?h. What do you think it will happen to our planet in 50 years?

One person in the group will report about the discussion they had on one of the questions above. Before having the report the teacher tells the group which question they will be asked to report on.

Task 2: READING

The Teacher will present the new vocabulary through a matching activity.

Read the words in column A and find a synonym of each word in column B. Write the letter next to the word.

COLUMN A COLUMN B Destroy ______ a. Weather Garbage ______ b. Contamination Huge ________ c. Inhabitants Laws ________ d .Available materials Pollution _______ e. Damage Climate ________ f. In danger Resources _______ g. Rules Population _______ h. Waste, trash, rubbish Extinction _______ i. Kinds Species ________ j. Enormous

Task 3. Read the article “Life in the year 2100”and complete the chart.

ISSUE PESSIMISTIC VIEW OPTIMISTIC VIEW

POPULATION

TEMPERATURE

PLANTS

ANIMALS

NATURAL RESOURCES

Task 4. Discuss with a partner

a. Discuss with your partner. What do you think life will be like in the year 2100?

b. Is your view point Pessimistic or Optimistic?. Why? Life long learning Think of an environmental campaign you would like

to work on. Which one? Why? What will you do? How?

Task 5: WRITING

The teacher asks students to write an e-mail to a classmate telling him/ her about their feelings related to what is happening to the environment. They will also need to write about possible solutions for the environmental problems we are facing. Students will discuss about each others’ e-mails during the next class.

Task 6. Video

Students will watch a video and they will take notes for a later discussion.

See Video script. After watching the video three times students will talk

about it in small grups supporting their ideas with the notes taken in the first activity.

Students will be given a transcript of the video. They will try to find the odd words.

Exercise copy.

COMMENT

The previous tasks were designed and some were adapted bearing in mind the content of the textbook AMERICAN CHANNEL ( Pre-Intermediate ), unit 8 titled Down to earth, which is the textbook selected to teach that level.

REFLECTION

I think that teachers and students both need to integrate and to work all the skills simultaneously because of many different reasons: They both need to have variety and also because acquiring a language means being competent and that implies to develop all the skills.