Communicative Activity

Communicative Activity

A Jewel in the Sand Fictional story	Title of lesson
Shahd AwadAllah from Gaza-Palestine	By
16-year old male students, grade 10. They are very good in reading & writing and good in speaking & listening.	Student profile
16 students. 2:30-hour class.	Class profile
New vocabularies: curious – interrupt – fiction – jewel –m tribe – matching – feast – generous.	Target language
Chronological order in stories. Differences between a short story & a play. Cultural traditions of nomads or Bedouins	Target content
Whiteboard – pens – posters – colors – glue – colored salt – pictures from the internet – articles from the internet – chalks – laptop.	materials
The text itself is from the shining star introductory book. Some of the materials are from the internet like the pictures & articles.	Source
I give a brief introduction about fiction & nonfiction with examples to make the idea clear for them. (10 mins)	procedures Task "1"
I ask students to work in pairs to think of fictional pieces they've read previously. Then I listen for their answers. (10 mins)	Task "2"
I play the laptop asking students to listen & follow in their books. (5 mins)	Task "3"
Students read the text & we discuss the new vocabularies explaining them in English & translating them into Arabic when needed. (20 mins)	Task "4"
We bring the text of the story turned into a play. On the board we start deducing the differences & comparing the two texts. (10 mins)	Task "5"
Students volunteers to play the roles in the play. They like the chorus part when they all talk together. Of course I need a lot to decide who is going to take part in the play & who is not as all of them want to participate in this activity. (10 mins)	Task "6"
I ask students to get the Bedouins or nomads customs from the text. We discuss them saying whether they work in our society or not justifying the answers. (20 mins)	Task "7"
We bring some articles & pictures about nomads, their animals, shelters & ways of living. A group of five students work on gluing these pictures & articles on posters. (15 mins)	Task "8"
Another group of students work on writing big titles on other posters related to the lesson, put glue in the spaces and fill them with the colored salt. If the salt is not colored, students color it with chalks. (20 mins)	Task "9"
I have two students talented in drawing, so they drew some pictures for nomads & camels. (15 mins)	Task "10"
We hang all the posters in the class taking some pictures to document our achievements. (10 mins)	Task "11"
I assign students to summarize the story in their own language as a homework. (5 mins).	Task "12"

1) incorporates specific content or a theme

The theme or the content is about nomads or Bedouins and their different traditions.

2) promotes authentic communication in English

Students communicates while discussing the different fictions they know, getting the different traditions or customs of Bedouins, comparing them to our traditions & playing the play.

3) integrates all four language skills

Listening: listening to the story via laptop.

Reading: students read the text.

Speaking: mentioning fictional pieces they know. discussing the customs & comparing them.

Writing: summarizing the story as a homework.

4) fosters learner autonomy

Students divided themselves in the groups while doing the activities depending in each others' abilities. They were asking each other for help.  I had a role in distributing roles before acting the play because all of them wanted to take part & things needed to be controlled at that stage. But in the other activities, students distributed the work among them.