BORROWED NOUNS MERYEM US

LESSON PLAN Subject: Borrowed nouns Grade: 8th grade Level: Pre-Intermediate Duration: 40’ Approach & Method: Communicative Language Teaching and Audiolingual Method Techniques: Repetition, Dialogues, Pair work Role of the students: Negotiator Role of the teacher: Organizer, Facilitator The nature of student-student and teacher-student interaction: Students interact with both the teacher and each other. Expected Errors: Mispronunciation and misspelling of borrowed nouns Error Source: L1 Type of Corrective Feedback: Recast, repetition Materials: Reading Passage, Board, Activity paper

Why to teach pronunciation? While learning a language, not only linguistic knowledge is adequate but correct pronunciation and correct usages of the words are also needed because we want our students to use the language communicatively. For an appropriate interaction, the students should pronounce the words and send their messages correctly. To prevent communication breakages, the learners should know the right pronunciation of the words. Besides, for written usage of language, the students should be efficient in writing the words correctly. Namely, both for oral and written competence, the students should be equipped with correct pronunciation and writing.

Moreover, as we all know, pronunciation can be a problem at all ages from the young learners to the adult ones. If the students learn the pronunciation of the words wrongly and if they are not corrected, this may lead to fossilization. We cannot erase the incorrect knowledge and put the right one. This is possible of course; however, this is even much more difficult than teaching a word’s pronunciation for the first time. If the students learn the wrong usages of the words, then they will have difficulty in correcting these usages. For this reason, at all ages pronunciation studies can be applied.

APPROACHES TO PRONUNCIATION There have been many approaches about language teaching up to now. Some of them gives emphasis on form, some of them on meaning, some of them on both of them. When it comes to the pronunciation, the greatest attention and importance have come from the Audiolingual Method. Charles Fries, who was the director of first English Institute in the USA, thought that the language was taught by systematic attention to pronunciation and many oral drillings. For this reason, in addition to support CLT, I think Audiolingual Method puts much more emphasis on pronunciation than the others. Namely, I preferred to use some techniques from Audiolingual Method for pronunciation.

The types of errors that are expected from the students I think that most of the students’ errors will result from their mother tongue. That is to say, they are likely to write and pronounce the words as they know in their native language. For example; while they write “taksi”, they will use this form in English instead of writing “taxi”. In terms of pronunciation, instead of ‘w’ sound, they will use ‘v’ as ‘w’ is not available in their language. They will use the most similar sounds to their mother tongue.

Types of Corrective Feedbacks For pronunciation, I think recasts and repetitions should be used because these are implicit ways of correcting errors, that is to say, we don’t directly warn the students about their errors; instead, we use recasts and repetitions without making them offended in front of their friends. For the writing skill, I think the best way is to make drills, repetitions and exercises. I also use a reading passage to make the students see the words’ right usages in a context. When they see the correct writings of the words, then they can memorize the text and the words easily. They can make connections between the words and the passage.

PRESENTATION The teacher comes into the class and greets the students. Before starting the lesson, she asks them where they go for holidays and what they eat there. By this way, the teacher both gives them clues about the lesson and attracts their attention. Then she distributes a reading passage in which borrowed nouns are used. “Marc wanted to eat hamburger. Mary and Anna ate pizza.” “She wore her T-shirt.”

After the students read the passage, the teacher reads the passage loudly and wants students to follow him\her from the paper. She warns them to pay attention to the pronunciation of the words. Then she asks them the bold words. She asks whether these words are written in the same way with their mother tongues or not. → As the students are learning new vocabularies, first I want them to see the words’ spellings. Reading passages can be the best way to make the students realize their spellings. They can easily make connections between the words and the passage in which the words are used.

→ As the students make comparisons and contrasts between L1 and L2, the lesson is also consisted of contrastive analysis. This makes them to realize the differences or similarities between L1 and L2. Namely, they will have linguistic awareness in both languages. → The teacher asks a question before starting the lesson because she tries to activate their brain and wants the students to use their background information. By this way, she alerts the students about the contents of the lesson.

Then the teacher asks whether they could realize the differences between the pronunciations of the words in L1 and L2. And then she makes repetitions. → As you know, our students may not have any other chance to hear the language outside the classroom. For this reason, they can learn the right pronunciation of the words just by listening their teachers namely by us. The teacher is the only source for appropriate learning. Thus, the teacher should be a reliable guide for them.

PRACTICE After the introduction to the lesson (presentation), the teacher gives a worksheet to the students on which some sentences with the bold nouns are written. She wants the students to listen to the sentences and write in the box whether they are pronounced in Turkish or in English.

ACTIVITY PAPER Marc and John didn’t like pizza. Anna ate two hamburgers as she was so hungry. Mary spent 1.250 dollars when she went to America. “Look at my back” was written on Marc’s T-shirt. Marc went surf on the Internet for five hours. Marc and his friends had to stay in a hotel. Anna got her walkman from her bag and began to listen to the music. John called a taxi and they went to the bazaar. Marc and his friends enjoyed the disco they went in Los Angeles.

PRODUCTION Then, she wants the students to work in pairs and write a dialogue about a topic they like most and use the learnt nouns in the dialogues. She wants pairs to listen to each others’ pronunciation and decide whether they are correct or not. → By making the students work in pairs, the teacher aims at learning with the help of others or learning from each other. If they work in pairs, they can gain experience about pair works. They realize the errors of his partner and pay attention to not to do these errors during his/her speeches.

THANKS…