My favorite lesson resource for adult classes is Breaking News English. It is a great source of lessons with a wide variety of topics for conversation and discussion classes. The lessons are available in different levels from "0" the lowest level to "7" the highest level of English ability. I am going to go through a typical lesson that I would go through using the following topic. The first thing that you will notice is that it consists of 26 pages of material including the answer key.
Since most of my lessons vary in length from 60-90 minutes it would be too much material to cover, so I only use some of the material. The first part of my lesson starts with the warm up and for this lesson I would start with number 3, the chart, to get the class talking in pairs or as a class discussion. If I had a small class of six I would assign one topic to each student and have them talk about some of the health benefits for each of the topics.I would allow about 10 minutes for discussion on this section before moving on to the 'Article'.
The articles are relatively short so I usually instruct the students to work in pairs and read a paragraph each out loud to maximixe their speaking opportunity. This usually takes about 5 minutes and I monitor the groups and listen for any pronuciation errors that I will write on the board, so we can review as a class.
The next step is the 'Before Reading / Listening'' section, which I go through one part at a time. I give the students a minute or two to complete the task and then we correct as a class. Each student will take turns reading an answer for each part. This part usually takes about 10-15 minutes to finish.
The last step is the 'Discussion' section which includes 20 discussion questions. Depending on the class size and the level of the students, I either set up the discussion as a class or have them work in pairs. This part usually takes about 20-30 minutes, which brings me to the end of my example lesson.
Feel free to make suggestions or add your favorite resource links in the comments section.
Well done Cass. I too have classes very similar to yours in time, duration, and class size and level. I seem to do many of the same activites. I think the planning of each class is vital. You provide the class with a nice mix of variety for each lesson which I'm sure they appreciate. Good lesson format!
ReplyDeleteBreaking News English is a great site! Very useful.
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