Reading Activity - Full Blast Unit 1

I began my lesson this year with a reading activity. This lesson is based on the 'Full Blast!' textbook, page 8.  I did not try anything ambitious as my intention is to develop my students reading skills using simple activities that will work for everyone, especially for my students. 

So, this was how the lesson went : 

Before I began the lesson, I put my students into small groups and they remained in the same groups throughout the lesson.  

For the pre-reading activity, I wanted to activate students prior knowledge on social networking sites(SNS), so students were given three questions to be discussed in their groups. After discussion, each group choose a representative to share the outcome of the group discussion. The sharing session then led to the next activity. 

The first round of discussion is in progress 

For the next activity, students were required to read the text assigned to them individually. There were four students in a group and each of them was assigned one section of the text. I also prepared supplementary task sheets to help them with the reading activity. You may click here to download the task sheet. As they read, students were required to fill in the necessary information in the task sheet provided and share them during the discussion with the rest of the class. They were required to identify the opinions of each individual about SNS in the text and together with the opinion they were also identified reasons given for the opinions. After completing the task,  students exchanged their answers with members from other groups.

Students completing tasks given in the supplementary task sheet while reading the text.

Students completed the supplementary task individually before discussing as a group

A student sharing opinion  and reason 

Upon completing this, I drew students attention to the next activity in the task sheet, where they have to read through the entire text again as a group to identify the advantages and disadvantages of SNS. Again, to save time I asked them to complete the task in their respective groups. After completing the table, students were asked to shout out their answers for the teacher's approval. This activity is followed by task C and D in the student's book. 

Students found it easier to complete task C and D in the textbook as they had read the text more than twice and understood the opinions of each individual in the text through the supplementary task. 

The next activity was speaking, due to time constraint, students were required to stay put in the same groups. I used talking chips so that students will be focussed and know their roles. Each student was given 8 chips. The chips have three different colours. Two pink chips for questioning, three blue chips to respond to a statement/question/answer and three yellow chips for them to state their opinions. The speaking task was very organised due to the use of the talking chips. 

Students are engaged in speaking task using the talking chips.

As a closure for this lesson, a few students were randomly picked using ice-cream sticks to share what they have learnt today. 

Happy Teaching!!!