Sentence Sense

Objectives:

• The learner will correctly match "a" and "an" with the correct noun.

• The learner will identify nouns, proper nouns, possessive pronouns, personal pronouns, verbs, adjectives and articles in simple sentences.

Duration:

    2 hours

Materials:

• "Practical Conversations," Workplace Plus 3, Joan Saslow, Pearson Education;2003, p. 2-3

• White board and markers

Activities:

High-Beginning and Low-Intermediate Learners:

1. Teacher arranges the following terms vertically on the left-hand or right-hand side of the board: "noun," "proper noun," "possessive pronoun," "personal pronoun," "verbs," "adjective," and "article," then writes a simple sentence containing a proper noun, noun, verb, adjective and article ( for example: "Charles drives a new car.")

2. In a think-pair-share activity, teacher asks learners to identify the noun, proper noun, verb, adjective and article.

3. Teacher elicits answers from the class, correcting and defining each term. Teacher uses additional examples as necessary.

4. Teacher writes four more similar, simple sentences on the board (using "umbrella" and "apple" as objects in two of the sentences), again using a think-pair-share strategy when asking learners to replace the proper nouns with personal pronouns. Learners share answers with the class and teacher corrects as needed.

5. Teacher points to the articles "an" in front of "umbrella" and "apple," then to the article "a" in front of the other objects, and asks learners to explain the difference. Teacher names the vowels as part of the "a/an" rule.

6. Teacher reviews parts of speech by conducting a substitution drill with three additional sentences written on the board (i.e.:"This is a __________."). Learners repeat several times each.

7. Teacher follows same procedure for nouns, proper nouns, possessive pronouns, personal pronouns, verbs and adjectives.

8. Teacher distributes "Practical Conversations," Workplace Plus 3, p.2. Teacher reads dialogue twice. Learners identify nouns, proper nouns, adjectives, articles, pronouns and verbs.

9. Teacher assigns A and B roles to learners and learners take turns conversing. Teacher assigns learner pairs, who practice the conversation again, switching roles.

10. Teacher leads learners in pronunciation of good weather and bad weather adjectives, asking for additional adjectives from learners. Teacher writes complete list on the board, adding more as needed.

11. Learners complete Part C of p.2.

12. Teacher repeats same method for p. 3, parts A, B and C.

High-Intermediate Learners:

   See "Using Computers to Find Information" (initial 2 hours)

Assessment:

High-Beginning and Low-Intermediate Learners: Teacher monitors verbal and written responses of individual learners; making notes of individual abilities.

High-Intermediate Learners: Refer to assessment in "Using Computers to Find Information."