Assignment Task
Text 1 – Lower Intermediate
Read Advice on Approaching this Assignment’ before you begin work on this template.
Class: Lower intermediate (B1), 13 young learners, age range 12-14.
These students attend EFL classes because their parents are keen for them to have extra English lessons in addition to what their state schools provide. Many of them resent having to come to language school, but you have found you can engage them if you make the lessons fun and interesting.
Fortnite – A Pleasure or a Problem?
Fortnite is an online video game made by a company called Epic Games. Players can fight enemies, collect materials and items, and make buildings. The game has three different versions, known as ‘modes’. The most popular mode is called ‘Battle Royale’. In a battle royale, players start with no items and collect weapons and other equipment as they play. Players try to remove other players and survive until the end of the game. A Battle Royale begins with up to one hundred players. The last player left alive is the winner. Fortnite is extremely popular. It came out in 2017 and now has hundreds of millions of players. And Epic Games has made hundreds of millions of dollars. Celebrities, such as the rapper, Drake, play the Battle Royale mode. Other people have become celebrities because they play the game. Fortnite is one of many video games which is played competitively as an ‘esport.’ In summer 2019, there was a lot of attention in the British media when the 15-year-old schoolboy, Jaden Ashman, won the second prize in the first Fortnite World Cup. Jaden and his 21-year-old Dutch game partner, Dave Jong, shared a prize of 2.25 million US dollars. Jaden’s mother said she always tried to stop him wasting his time on the game.
The company sells a lot of game-related products, such as branded clothes and action figures. Players can buy additional features for the game with Fortnite’s own currency; ‘V-bucks,’ which they can earn as they play the game. A popular additional feature is
silly dances for the characters. Many people copy the game’s dances in real life. There are numerous videos of people doing these dances on YouTube and other websites.
There are concerns about Fortnite. Parents and teachers worry about how much time children spend playing the game when they should be doing schoolwork. Some believe that it is addictive. Items in the game are bought with V-bucks, but V-bucks can be bought with real money. There are many reports of children spending their parents’ money on the game without permission. Although the game is colourful and has a light-hearted style, some adults feel that it is too violent for children. After all, the Battle Royale mode involves killing other player’s characters with guns and other weapons.
Lesson Aims:
- To extend and practice productive use of vocabulary for talking about computer games and associated topics.
- To further develop reading skills through short reading activities on skimming and intensive reading.
Vocabulary Pre-Teaching – Presentation Materials
- In this space, insert any materials you would use e.g., visual aids, worksheets, what you would write on the board, etc.
- If you use images, do not use more than 6. These do not need to be the actual size you would use in the classroom.
- If you prefer, you can submit the images in a separate document, but please label them clearly IMAGES FOR VOCABULARY.
- You do not need to devise the practice task.
Teacher Language for Teaching Two Items
- This part of the assignment is set to enable us to assess your language grading, eliciting, pronunciation teaching and concept checking.
- You must show:
▪ The language you would use for presenting 2 of your selected vocabulary items that could not be explained using only pictures.
▪ Present what you would say in dialogue form including some expected student responses.
Text 2 – Upper Intermediate
Read ‘Advice on Approaching Assignment A’ before you begin working on this template.
Class: A strong upper intermediate (B2) class of 16 young adults, age range 18-23.
These students are highly motivated, well-educated, and quick to learn. They are all learning English either to improve their job prospects or because they are hoping to study at university in an English-speaking country.
The European Honeybee
You probably know there has been a fall in the world’s bee population and that this is not good news. But, unless you are an entomologist
(/ˌentəˈmɒlədʒɪst/ ‒ an insect expert), you probably don’t know that much about bees or why they matter so much to our lives. Most of us are
familiar with social bees, such as the honeybee or the bumblebee, which live in large groups, called colonies.
Worldwide, there are approximately 20,000 species of bee. Surprisingly, most of these are solitary, i.e., they live alone or in smaller groups.
In this article we will focus on the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). The behaviour exhibited by the honeybee is called eusociality
/jʊˌsoʊ.ʃi.’æl.ə.t̬i/. This has three key characteristics:
● generational overlap – mother and adult offspring live side by side
● cooperative care of offspring
● reproductive division of labour – only certain individuals can reproduce.
Within a colony there are different classes of bee, known as ‘castes.’ Each caste plays distinct roles in the group. The European honeybee has
three castes within a colony. The diet which female larvae1 are fed determines which caste they will belong to.
Queen
Larvae which are fed only royal jelly become potential queen bees. Queens are the reproductive caste. There is usually only one queen in a
colony. The queen is the only female bee in a hive that is able to reproduce. She lays around 2,000 eggs a day, each in an individual honeycomb
cell. Queens normally live for three to five years. However, not all queens survive, as newly emerged queens often kill each other in the nest.
Queens only leave the nest in order to mate or establish a new colony. When one leaves, she takes a large group of workers with her.
Worker
Worker bees develop from larvae that are fed royal jelly only for the first few days. They are then given nectar and pollen. Worker bees are female bees, but they do not mate and do not generally lay eggs. Workers perform all the other duties needed to keep their colony functioning. This includes a bee’s best-known behaviour; collecting nectar from flowers to turn into honey. Honey is the food that the bees live on in the winter. When they are collecting nectar, bees pollinate the plants they visit. Worker bees can have other roles, such as making honeycomb. Young ‘nurse bees’ feed the larvae and keep the nest clean. Worker bees live for between 6 weeks and five months.
Drone
Drones are male bees. Male bees are produced from unfertilised2 eggs and, as larvae, receive the same diet as workers. Drones’ only function is to mate with the queen, after which they die. A typical honeybee colony will usually contain between 20,000-50,000 bees. Only about 15% of these are drones. Come winter, remaining drones are thrown out of the colony in order to save resources. Otherwise, the only reason drones leave the colony is to mate with a new queen.
In recent years there has been a worrying decrease in the populations of many bee species. Honeybees are suffering from colony collapse, where large numbers of workers leave the nest and do not return. Major causes of this decline are the use of pesticides3, climate change, loss of habitat and loss of plant biodiversity4.
100 crops produce up to 90% of our human diets. 70 of those crops rely on bees for pollination. This means that a disaster for bees is a disaster for humans too. Many of the plants that animals rely on are also pollinated by bees. Plants not only provide food, but they also perform many other essential functions, including producing the oxygen we breathe. The death of bee populations could lead to widespread ecological collapse.
1 larva (noun – singular) /ˈlɑrvə/, larvae (noun – plural) /ˈlɑrvi/ = an insect at the stage when it has just come out of an egg and looks like a short fat worm – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
2 fertilise (Am. Eng. fertilize) [to fertilise an egg or seed] Verb – transitive = To cause an egg or seed to start to develop into a new young animal or plant by joining it with a male cell. unfertilised (adjective) /ʌn ˈfɜː.tɪ. laɪzd/ – not fertilised – Cambridge Dictionary
3 pesticide (noun – countable and uncountable) /ˈpestɪsaɪd/ = A chemical used to kill insects which damage plants – Cambridge Dictionary
4 biodiversity (noun– uncountable) /ˌbaɪəʊdaɪˈvɜːsəti/ = the existence of a large number of different kinds of animals and plants which make a balanced environment. – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
Lesson Aims:
- To further develop reading skills with particular focus on gaining an in-depth understanding of a text through intensive reading.
- To introduce and provide practice in using key vocabulary needed for understanding the text and further discussion.
1. First Reading Task
- In this space show the task you would set for the first reading (2 or 3 skimming and/or scanning questions). Skim questions are more useful.
- Say how you would set the task (e.g., write it on the board, include it in a handout, etc.).
2. Second Reading Task
- In this space, show 7-10 open-ended comprehension questions that require full understanding of the language and ideas in the text
- Include 1 or 2 questions to encourage readers to think about their own responses to the text.
- Say how you would set the task (e.g., write it on the board, include it in a handout, etc.).
Text 3 – Elementary
Read ‘Advice on Approaching Assignment A’ before you begin work on this template.
Class: Elementary (A1) 12 adults (6M, 6F), age range 25-56. Most of the students want to learn English because they feel it will improve their job prospects. Three are learning for recreational reasons.
21st Century Dad
Bobbie and Moira Fernandez got married 6 years ago when they were 24 years old. Their daughter, Addison, was born 3 years later. Their baby son, Remy, is 15 months old.
Bobbie worked in a library, and Moira is an engineer. Moira loves her work, so Bobbie left his job. He stays at home with the children. We asked Bobbie about his day. “Well, we get up when Remy wakes us up, which is usually at about half past six in the morning. Moira takes a shower and has breakfast while I look after the children.
Moira leaves the house at 7.30. Addison’s kindergarten is close to our house. Usually Addison walks, and I carry the baby. When we are late, I put them in the buggy, or take them on my bike. After that, I often take Remy to the park by the river. He loves to see the boats and ducks on the river. We sometimes take some food for the ducks.
He likes the swings in the children’s playground. I usually meet other parents and babies there, so I can have a chat with them. On Wednesdays I collect Addison from kindergarten at 12.30. Then we go to the market to buy food. Moira always goes to the supermarket on Saturday morning. We don’t have a car, so we can’t do all the shopping on one day. In the afternoons the children have a nap, and I clean and tidy the house.
I cook the evening meal every day except Friday. On Fridays, my wife normally cooks, but occasionally we go out for a meal or get a takeaway. I enjoy being a stay-at-home dad. It’s hard work, and sometimes it’s boring. But it’s great fun to watch your children grow up. We are very happy.”
Lesson Aims:
- Enable students to skim for gist, scan for detail and read a text intensively to achieve a thorough understanding.
- To reinforce the use of present simple for routines and frequency adverbs through seeing them in context.
- Extend and practice productive spoken use of vocabulary related to family and daily routines.
1. Follow-on Activities – Materials
- In this space, insert any materials you would use e.g., visual aids, worksheets, what you would write on the board, etc.
- If you use images, do not use more than 6. These do not need to be the actual size you would use in the classroom.
- If you prefer, you can submit the images in a separate document, but please label them clearly IMAGES FOR FOLLOW-ON.
2. Describe and Justify
- Complete all the white parts of the lesson plan template to show the procedure for your TWO follow-on activities.
- In the space below the plan, explain why you have selected these TWO activities and why they are appropriate for this lesson with this class.