Lesson #1

    So, where do we start? Our class will be composed by students from the second year of secondary school, they would be around the B1 level. For our first lesson on Reported Speech, students will have seen the basic rules of this topic in the previous class. Now it's time for them to start reporting statements, questions and orders. In this class students will start by revising how to report direct speech and then will work. The last topic students looked into was in their previous class was vocabulary related to the environment, this will be necessary for their final product of this unit but will not be included in this lesson. 

    🙇‍♂️ Warm up activity: 

    Students will have to log into a Nearpod presentation that is being displayed in the class' TV. When everyone has logged in through their phones the teacher will start a video with a scene from the TV series FRIENDS. The video will stop on its own every once in a while and ask students a multiple choice questions to complete reported sentences or they will have to report what someone said in the clip. This activity will focus on revising how to report sentences (specifically statements, questions and orders).

    According to Bloom's taxonomy in this activity students will be able to identify and classify if the sentences are statements, questions or orders (Level: Understanding). The advantage of using a web 2.0 tool in this case rather than just using a photocopy is that it allows students to work simultaneously while watching web content, according to the SAMR model this would ultimately modify the activity. It will also be a short activity done by the whole class at the same time to revise the topic. 

    This activity also aims to foster active learning, because students don't just sit down and passively consume a video. Instead, students have to pay close attention and be ready to answer questions as the video is played. Students are expected to work autonomously through their phones and to participate in an activity that would normally be a passive experience. 

    Presentation:

 

(If the presentation doesn't load, click here.)

    ✍ Main activity:

    For the main activity of the class the teacher will need to set up a scavenger hunt before the students arrive. QR codes will need to be hidden through the classroom, the codes can be scanned to get different lines of dialogue that when put together create a very short story. Students will be divided into groups of 3 or 4 people and tasked with finding all the codes, organising the part of the story and reporting the whole conversation. The group that finishes first will be crowned the winner.

    This activity and the previous one are also examples of m-learning, because students depend on their personal mobile devices to answer questions, get the quotes from the codes and complete the task. This activity could, of course, be done without their mobile phone, but it wouldn't be the same. Again. according to the SAMR model, this activity would be Modification, because the task is redesigned and it even allows to add not only text but also audio clips for students to work on. It also adds an element of gamification, because students are competing with each other and collaborate with teammates, it excites them and has a clear goal they have to reach. Collaborating as a team, digital literacy and problem solving are also 21st century skills that are present in this activity, students have to find the codes together and they need to know how to scan and read them correctly. 

    This activity is another clear example of active learning, students are not working in simple sentences given by the teacher, they have to act on their own to put their knowledge of the topic into practice. It also take into consideration the kinesthetic students that need to move in order to better understand a topic and that`prefer to move around the room rather than sitting down. 

    QR Codes (hover over the codes to see the prompts):

(If the picture doesn't load, click here) 

   🤔 What's next?

    For the end of the class students will be asked to write down quotes from people around them and to post them on a Padlet board that will be shared with them through Google Classroom. They need to write down at least 1 statement and 1 question they hear in their everyday life (check out our next post to see how that Padlet looks like). The sentences will need to be written in Direct Speech and will act as the starting point of the following class. 

This way the activity fosters autonomy by giving them homework in which they just have to collect information and share it with their peers rather than doing traditional worksheets a lot of students are likely to not end up doing. According to the SAMR model this is an example of augmenting the activity through the implementation of technology. So far there is no transformation of the activity (students could just bring the quotes on paper), but the use of Padlet's collaborative functions improve the functionality of the activity. 

If you want to know what comes next, click here. 

References:

- "Bloom's Digital Taxonomy" by Niall McNulty.

- "21st Century Skills" on The Glossary for Education Reform.

- "Introduction to the SAMR model" by Common Sense Education.

- "Gamification in education: what is it & how can you use it?"