CEP Lesson Plan

Teacher/s: Janet Xu and Xiao Yang

Level:A4 Date: 02/26/2014

Goal: Comprehend and use past tense

Objectives: (In a perfect world) Students Will Be Able To
1. Describe a dream using past tense, request an interpretation and give possible
interpretation
2. Talk about different meanings of dreams in their own culture
3. Use asas, not soas, enough, such accurately

Theme: Dream

(Extensions: students were asked to prepare to talk about dreams in their own culture
before coming to class.)


Aim/Skill/Microskill Activity/Procedure/Stage Interaction Time

Review or Preview (if
applicable)


Linking & Transitioning to rest of
lesson:


(for example:
SS-T)


Activity 1:

What do some dreams
mean?




Transition to #2: It is
interesting to hear about
what some dreams mean in
different cultures. Now that
weve talked about what
some dreams in your country
mean, I have found
interpretations of different
dreams here.
However, what do dreams
really mean in a more
scientific view? Lets hear

Pre-Stage:
Introducing the topic, dream, and
share one of the dream and its meaning
in my culture as an example for
students to model.

During Stage:
Pair students up and ask them to
interview each other with two main
questions:

Do certain dreams have special
meanings in your country? If so, what
are those dreams about and what are
the meanings behind it?
If not, ask your partner what the most
amazing/frightening dream he or she
ever had is.



SS-T

SS-SS
12mi
n
from a psychologist!

Post-Stage:
Report to the whole class about what
your partners answer is and try to
paraphrase his or her answer.

Ask students if they think these
interpretations of different dreams are
based on scientific evidence or purely
superstitious.

(Tangible Outcome)

Activity 2:

A psychological view about
dreams




Transition to #3:
Do you think you know more
about dreams and the
meaning behind it? When
you talk about your dreams
that happened in the past,
did you notice the tense you
used?


Pre-Stage:
Meanings of 5 different dreams

Pr-teach vocabulary
Interpret
REM sleep
panicked
paralyzed
represent

During Stage:
1
st
listening, no note-taking
Listen for gist

2
nd
listening,
Take notes about main idea and
examples;
Try to paraphrase the main idea of the
video and use some examples to
support the view;
Talk to your partner about your
conclusion

Post-Stage:
Do you think this theory make sense?
Why? Have you experienced any of
those dreams that were discussed in the
video? Were you confronting some
issues in real-life then?

(Tangible Outcome)

SS-T

SS-SS
18
min

Activity 3:
Talk about your dream in
past tense


Transition to
#4:___________________

Pre-Stage:
At the beginning of this class, you
talked about dream in your culture
with your partners. Did you remember
what tenses you use when you talk to
your partner? Did you use present
tense or past tense? Which do you think
is more proper when you talk about
dreams in your culture? (Ask SS to give
their opinion and explain why they
think so) Conclude that its more
proper to talk about dreams in their
culture using simple present tense
because it is not a specific dream that
happened, but a general cultural
phenomenon.

During Stage:
Asked students to read the model
conversation on page 17 and pay
attention to the tenses.

Talk to your partner about what you
noticed with regard to tenses used in
the conversation. Why do you think
they use these tenses? Then ask
students to report what they discussed.

Point out that past tense is used in
describing the dream in the
conversation. Compare this with
talking about dream in general where
present tense is used.

Now please take three minutes to
briefly write down one of your dreams
in the past. Remember to use simple
past tense while you write.

Exchange your writing with the person
next to you. Try to do peer correction
and talk with your partner to see
whether you get the past tense
correctly.

Now, please look at the first sentence
TS, SS 40
min
of the last part of the conversation.
Why did the dreamer use must here,
what does this must mean? (Listen
to students answer and write It
should/may/can/might be a good dream
on the board). Tell them these are used
to express degree of certainty. Have
them discussed in a group and range
them from the highest certainty to the
lowest.

Ask each group to report their order of
certainty, and then give the correct
order. Ask students to write it down.

Now, please describe your dream to
your partner using past tense. And
then, the partner will explain your
dream to you starting with the sentence
It must/should/may/might/can be
Then switch roles.

Post-Stage: I see many of you did a
great job describing your dream.
Remember that simple past tense can
be used not only to describe your
dream last night, but also other things
that happened in the past. We also
learned about how to express certainty
and probability using must, should,
can, could, might.

(Tangible Outcome)
Activity 4:

Reading comprehension

Transition to #5:
There is a similar reading
passage in our test for Unit
1 on Thursday, and lets
review what we have learned
so far in Unit 1.


Pre-Stage:
Ask students to turn to page 11 in the
textbook:
We have talked about skimming before
and used this text, do you still
remember the main ideas?

During Stage:
Ask students to read through the
passage and try to answer questions on
page 13.
Check answers with students.

T-Ss 25
min

Post-Stage:
Explain the right answers, and let
students know that there is a similar
part on the test about reading
comprehension.

Activity 5:

Review




Transition to Wrap-Up:
We have reviewed all the
grammar we learned in this
unit, and you guys are doing
very good job. I'm pretty
sure you will be fine for the
test tomorrow. See you~
Pre-Stage: Ask students to recall what
grammar we learned in unit one. Try to
elicit examples by asking them, what do
we use to compare two things? Write
down enough, such, so, suchthat,
sothat, too, tooto, asas, not
soas on the board

During Stage:
Students take turn to make sentence
using the phrases on the board. T goes
through each of them with SS.

Post-Stage:
T asks SS to write down the structure
of each phrase and make a sentence for
each phrase.

25mi
n

Wrap-up


Talk about the unit test tomorrow. Tell
students that there are no listening this
time, just grammar and reading
comprehension.

1 min

Materials:
Textbook, prepared practice questions, videos, audio files

Anticipated Problems & Suggested Solutions:
--Uneven number of parents for activity ----
Have two students pair up and be parents or mom and a relative.

Contingency Plans (what you will do if you finish early, etc.):
Talk about homework assigned, and go through the reading passage.


Post-Lesson Reflections: