Writing About the Pros and Cons of Team Sports

When I decided to explore the writing task on page 62 in the Full Blast textbook, I wanted to do a hands-on activity with my form four students. With 'social distancing' being practised in school, I had to think of doing activities without having my students to break the social distancing rule, at the same time I also had to make sure I have sufficient materials and tools for them to do an individual task. 

So, What I did was, a few simple but engaging tasks. As a starter, I asked my students to think about the advantages and disadvantages of doing things as a group in the class. Students were given 2 minutes to think and they were then asked to shout out their answers (of course with their mask on, I had a difficult time listening to their answers). I wrote all their 'shout - outs' on the whiteboard and save it for the discussion later. 

The next task, students were asked to read the text on 'The advantages and disadvantages of team project work at school'. I did not want to make it a typical lesson of students read and the teacher asks a few questions and then move on to the next part of the lesson. I found the text to be very useful and students could actually explore the text looking for useful details before working on their own writing task. So, I designed a diagram for them to fill in details while reading the text. This was just another 'information transfer' activity, but I believe by doing this students will understand how to layout the structure of the essay when they write about advantages and disadvantages. You may download the task sheet here. The following picture shows examples of students' work. 

In this task, students were required to identify the advantages and disadvantages of a team project, as well as the writer's own opinion on the issue discussed. Besides, students were also asked to identify phrases to express contrast, phrases that are used to give example, phrases to extend one's opinion as well as phrases that are used to summarise the entire write - up. 

After completing the diagram, students were then drawn to the next task. Their task was to design a diagram on the pros and cons of playing team sports. The diagram that they used to complete the earlier task was an example for them to understand how to design their own diagram. 

Before they began, they were given a few reminders, they were told to think about specifically on the pros and cons of team sports. They were not to give general ones such as the following : 

Pros of team sports : 

         

                           a) keeps us healthy 

Cons of team sports : 

                           b) takes our time away from studies  

I did not allow my students to give ideas as above as they were too general and applicable to all kinds of sports. I wanted to develop their higher-order thinking skills. So, I made them think the pros and cons specifically on team sports. The following are some examples of diagrams drawn by students :

    I put all the diagrams on the noticeboard in the classroom so that students could take turns to look at their friends' work and get some ideas on how to work on the topic as they were required to write an article on "The Pros and Cons of Team Sports" in about 250 words as their homework. In order to help them to write better, I also gave them a checklist to refer while writing their essays. The checklist is shown in the picture below and they are to submit their essays together with the checklist. 

 

My reflection : 

The lesson went well and I believe with the activities that were carried out throughout the lesson, students will remember how to develop ideas to write an essay on advantages and disadvantages. I also focussed on the grammatical elements while we were reading the text to help students to understand the tenses that were used to write this essay. So, it helped them with the writing part too. 

That is all for now. Thank you and Happy Teaching!