STFA Tam Pak Yu College

BIT

English Language

Background

This lesson aims at introducing Simple Past Tense to lower secondary students. It will be presented in the comprehension passage context. This PowerPoint presentation is made especially for grammar learning not only by watching the PowerPoint presentation, but also arousing students’ interest in participating Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) activities.

Objective of the lesson

After the lesson, students should be able

- to understand that verbs can tell about action in the past

- to understand that -ed can be added to regular verbs to make them tell about the past

- to understand the different ways of forming irregular verbs

- to understand and use the past tense in positive, negative sentences and in questions

Tools

  1. A PowerPoint Presentation, “Past Tense”,
  2. An Internet browser
  3. Online exercises.

Scheme of Work

  1. Introduction (5 minutes)

Talk to students about what the teacher did last weekend.

e.g. I had a nice weekend.

Ask students what did they do?

I played video games.

  1. Presentation and Practices (35 minutes)

The Power Point presentation helps students to understand how the past tense verbs are formed. The practice helps students to consolidate the past tense.

  1. Further Practices (20 minutes)

As students might need to have further consolidation they may go to the websites as a form of self-learning and revision.

Rationale of Using IT

  1. The process of second language learning is difficult. The use of Information

Technology enhances students to understand and learn the subject contents by the pictures, sounds and animation presented in the Power Point slides.

  1. Online Exercises

The online websites enable students to have easy access to grammar exercises. They simply click the website addresses according to their level they have learnt. The learning makes possible even when they have come across any difficulties since hints are provided. The keying in the answers and get their own personal feedback and score instantly do facilitate their self-learning.

Reflective Statements

  1. The integrating IT in the lesson serves in teaching the language structures in an effective way. It holds the attention of the students since they interact with activities or practices provided on the screen. Students read and study the practices together rather than doing exercises individually. It does stimulate them to do the tasks with their classmates and raise their sense of achievements.
  1. But the production of Power Point material is time-consuming for teachers. It would be beneficial if an IT English teaching material resource centre can be set up in local area for teachers to share and access the material which are useful. Perhaps the publishers or QEF fund can provide personnel and financial assistance.
  1. The MMLC room would be an ideal place for conducting IT assisted English lesson instead of a normal classroom since ready at hand facilities are provided. Students can interact with the on-line exercises on the computers at their own pace and level.

By Lam Suk Chi (A8) 26/3/2001