Lesson Plan: The importance of pronouns as cohesive

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Teacher: __________________________________

Class profile:  Students in the pre-intermediate level from a regular classroom of a private

school. This classroom has 18 students who are under the ages of 12 and 13 years.

Time: 3 hours and 20 minutes (four classes of 50 minutes each) – these classes will be

divided into two days with two classes each.

Aims:

· To link ideas in a text using subject and object pronouns.

· To classify different pronouns in specific categories

· To describe people using subject and possessive pronouns

· To use background knowledge to understand concepts.

Personal Aims:

· To give clear instructions about the topic in focus.

· To introduce grammar using students’ background knowledge, showing them different

examples.

Skill and language focus:

· Pronouns - definition

· Subject, Object and Possessive Pronouns

· Developing the ability of describing people and linking ideas in a text by using pronouns,

through grammar exercises.

Assumptions:

Students are probably familiar with vocabulary related to subject, possessive and

interrogative pronouns. They are also supposed to know the role of the pronouns   in the

building of a text.

Anticipated problems and possible solutions:

Students can have some problems with reflexive, relative and indefinite pronouns. Some

students can face difficulties in using demonstrative and object pronouns. Students might

not be able to memorize all the pronouns as there is a lot of detailed information they must
understand. This problem will probably be solved during classes through practice. This topic

will be covered in six classes, at  least.

By the end of the lesson my students should be able to:

· Use subject, object and possessive pronouns.

· Use pronouns to describe people.

· Link ideas in a text using pronouns.

Materials:

· Song – audio and lyrics

· Computer or radio

· Data show projector (to show the clip of the song, if available)

· Lists of exercises

· Pictures of celebrities

· Extra sheets of paper for activities

· Diagram’s copies

· Colored pens, glue, scotchtape

Steps:

Warm-up activity

The students will start the class by listening to a song called “Somewhere only we know” by

Keane (See attachment 1) and they will do all the activities proposed during classes in pairs.

Before  listening to the song, the teacher is going to show the students a picture of the

singer of the song and his band and she is going to ask the students if they know the

singer/band and the kind of music they generally sing. Then, she is going to present them

some information about the singer and the band in order to better contextualize the song

they are going to listen to. The teacher is going to talk about the singer and the band orally,

without showing the students written information about them yet. The teacher is going to tell

students that she decided to bring a song for the class because teenagers generally love

songs. Then, she is going to ask the students if they like songs and what kind of songs do

they like to listen to. After these pre-listening activities, the teacher is going to write on the

board the name of the song the students are going to listen to: “SOMEWHERE ONLY WE

KNOW” and she is going to ask the students if they can understand/translate the name of
the song. As they will be working in pairs they will have the opportunity to formulate

hypothesis together. The teacher is going to write on the board the better translation given

by the students and then she is going to play the song for the first time. In this first

moment, the students are going to listen to the song and watch its videoclip, but they are

not going to have its lyrics or a subtitle to read. The goal is just to listen to it for fun. The

teacher is going to ask the students if they liked the song and what they felt while listening

to it and watching the video. She is also going to ask if they could understand sentences or

isolated words from the song. Then, the students are going to receive a handout with the

song lyrics and  listen to the song for the second time.

Building knowledge activities

After listening to the song for the second time, the teacher is going to ask the students to

translate some parts of the song. So, for example, each one of the pairs is going to translate

one strophe of the song. They are not supposed to use dictionaries. As they will be working

together, if they are not able to translate the exact meaning of a word, they can try to infer

its meaning from the context and tell the teacher, with their own words, what they could

understand from the strophe. While students try to do their task, the teacher will walk

around the classroom, talking to the groups about their comprehension task. Then, the

teacher is going to ask each one of the pairs to share their translation with the whole group,

asking them questions about the meaning of the song and about the referents of some

pronouns, such as: In this sentence: Somewhere only we know, who is this “we”? What does

“we” mean? What about this sentence: I felt the earth beneath my feet, who is this “I” and

this “my”? What do you think? While she asks questions she takes notes on the board about

the answers from the students, focusing in the use of pronouns, without telling students the

grammar point of the class yet. At this point, the teacher is going to ask students if they

liked the song, if they liked the melody and the translation of it, if they had already listened

to it before and other personal questions. She is also going to ask them if they can identify

the common characteristics of song’s lyrics, for example: rhymes; themes of love, life,

death, freedom, fear, etc; some words that are not grammatically correct (wanna, gonna,

etc) and so on. She can ask other questions, such as: Can we say that song’s lyrics are

poems? Is there any difference or similarity between songs lyrics and poems? The goal of

these questions is to characterize the textual genre song lyrics in order to make clear for

students that song’s lyrics are also kinds of texts which can express meaning, which have a

communicative purpose, a specific target audience, a lot of characteristics in common, etc.

The teacher is going to draw on the board a mind map about the textual genre song lyrics

and complete the information in the mind map with the answers given by the students for

her questions. She will ask the students to glue the song’s lyrics and to register the mind

map in their notebook.

the data show projector) a diagram (see attachment 2) in which they will find all the classes

of pronouns. Students are also going to receive a handout with the diagram projected. The

teacher is going to explain the diagram briefly and ask students to complete each of the

classes of pronouns with one example taken from the song, if possible. As they will be

working in pairs, since the previous activities, this activity will also be done in pairs. Then,

the teacher will check their answers orally and take notes on the board. For each one of the

classes of pronouns, she is going to add more one or two examples. These examples will be

shown in the diagram projected through the data show projector and they will be simple

examples, easily understood by students. See some examples:

Demonstrative pronouns:

This is my best friend.

That is João. He is a very nice student.

Personal pronouns:

That is João. He is a very nice student.

Anahy is our History teacher. She is amazing!

Tom Chaplin is the vocalist of Keane English Band. He sings very well.

Possessive Pronouns:

This is my best friend.

Anahy is our History teacher. She is amazing!

Interrogative Pronouns:

Who is the vocalist of Keane English Band?

Where is Keane Band from?

Reflexive Pronouns:

Can you do the homework by yourself?

No, I can’t do it by myself.

Relative Pronouns:

This is the man who sings at Keane Band.

Keane is the English Band that I was talking to you about.

Everybody likes music.

Does anybody here like rock?

Reciprocal Pronouns:

You should help each other during the activity.

You can’t talk one another while you listen to the song.

After showing the examples to the students and explaining the grammar focus, the teacher

will focus the class on the types of pronouns that will be used in these first classes (subject,

object and possessive pronouns), explaining to the students that they will keep studying this

topic for at least three or four classes.

Written activity

The students are going to be asked to work on some exercises - at this time in groups of four

students - using subject, object and possessive pronouns.

In the first activity, the students are going to receive a text (see attachment 3) in which they

are going to be asked to improve cohesive aspects, replacing repeated nouns by subject and

object pronouns. The teacher is going to correct the activity collectively in class and then ask

the students to write a text, similar to the text they filled in, talking about the students from

their group, identifying their names and using pronouns to make reference to them inside

the text. The students are going to prepare this activity in an extra sheet of paper and hand

it in to the teacher, who will correct them at home.

As we were talking about a famous band in the beginning of the classes and we also use

pronouns in the description of people, in the second activity the students are going to receive

three pictures of famous people and they will choose one of the celebrities and write some

sentences to describe the person, using subject and possessive pronouns. The teacher  is

going to provide the students with a model in which she will show the information about the

band Keane and its vocalist Tom Chaplin. Based on the teacher’s model, the students  are

going to write about their celebrities. This exercise  is also going to be done in groups of four

students and the information about the celebrities  is going to be provided by the teacher.

The students  are going to receive the picture and in the back of each one of the pictures the

students will find some information about the famous person. The students are supposed to

the present to the class, orally, the characteristics of their celebrities. They are going to be

asked to write six sentences about their celebrities, according to the model provided:
 

Examples of sentences about the celebrity:

His name is Thomas Oliver Chaplin.

He is a singer.

He is from England.

He was born on March 08th, 1979.

            He plays rock.

            He is the vocalist of Keane Band.

            He plays the guitar and the piano.

            He is married.

            His wife’s name is Natalie Dive.

After presenting their celebrities to the teacher and to their classmates, the students are

going to receive an extra sheet of paper with grammar exercises (see attachment 4) related

to the pronouns studied. They will work on these exercises as a homework assignment and

the teacher will correct them in the following class. The goal of this task is to help students

understand the use of subject and object pronouns in different situations, paying attention to

the grammar rules required in the use of these pronouns. Although during the activities

proposed in class the students already had the opportunity to use these pronouns in different

situations, it is also important to review the topic studied at home. The activities done in

class were all in groups. This task will be done individually, which is important to notice

personal doubts and mistakes.

Evaluation:

The students are going to be evaluated during the classes, considering their participation and

involvement in the activities. They  are also going to be evaluated in terms of their oral

presentation (use of pronouns in the descriptions of the celebrities, use of the appropriate

verb tense in the sentences, pronunciation); by their written activity, which was done in

groups of four, based on the text read in class (in this activity we are going to consider the

correct use of subject and object pronouns) and by their homework assignment (in this

activity we are not going to consider how many sentences they answered correctly but if

they answered all the exercises).

References:

HADFIELD, Jill & Charles. Manual Oxford de Introdução ao Ensino de Língua Inglesa.

Curitiba: Positivo, 2009.

MURPHY, Raymond. Essential Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2000.

RICHARDS, Jack C. New Interchange: English for International Communication. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2001.

[Link]. Acesso em 04 de junho de 2014.

[Link] Acesso em 21 de dezembro de 2014.

[Link] Acesso em 04 de junho de 2014.

[Link]. Acesso em 04 de junho de 2014

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