7G: SPEAKING

PHOTO COMPARISON AND PRESENTATION

A. Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. Knowledge:
- Recalling the facilities at school
- Recalling phrases to show similarities and differences to structure the speech
- Discussing school clubs
- Giving a presentation on what schools should spend money on
- Listening to two students talk about what schools should spend money on
- Using language for describing photos
2. Skills:
- Describing photos
- Comparing ideas for spending money on schools and justify opinions
- Expressing personal opinions
- Organizing points or opinions
- Justifying and
- Concluding them
3. Attitudes:
- Respecting the current facilities of schools
B. Preparations:
- Teacher: handouts, textbook, lesson plan, power point slides
- Students: textbooks
C. Procedure:
 Stage and Content Activities Aim
* Warm-up: Game: Mind-map - T: setting the scene, telling students - In this stage,
Tell me about the facilities at school. they are going to list words or phrases students get
about facilities at school motivated at the
canteen - Ss: thinking about words of previous beginning of the
lessons lesson and review
… … - T: having some students to answer vocabulary they
… … and correct have studied in
- Ss: taking turns to answer and take previous sessions
… School … notes
… … -T: leading to the lesson by saying
“today, we’re going to discuss school
… … club, and giving a presentation on what
… … schools should spend money on”
…
- Ss: following the teacher’s lead-in
…
Keys:
- library - gym
- playground - corridor
- hall - science lab
- playing field - stairs
- staff room - head teacher’s office
- store room - ….
I. Pre-speaking - T: eliciting more vocabulary about - Pre-teaching
* Vocabulary: school facilities in many ways: vocabulary ensures
- corridor + visuals that students can get
- science lab + visuals and examples more input for the
- staff room + visuals and explanation presentation
- store room + visuals
- head teacher’s office + visuals and explanation
- Ss: listening, answering, and taking
notes
- T: reading aloud the words as model, - Repeating after the
asking students to repeat chorally, and teacher gives
correcting their pronunciation if students a chance of
necessary pronouncing the
- Ss: listening and repeating target language
- T: giving feedback and necessary correctly
correction
- Ss: listening
* Activity 1: Look at the photos. Where - T: eliciting the task by asking a - Eliciting helps
are the people? Match each photo with a question: engage students in
place below. + Which places are mentioned in the the task
in school canteen classroom box?
hall library playground - Ss: listening and answering by
playing field staff room store room reading aloud the words in the box
- T: asking students to match the photo
with a place in the box
 Stage and Content Activities Aim
- Ss: answering

Keys: 1. hall 2. playing field

Activity 2: Describe photo 1. What can - T: asking students to explain their - Convincing the
you see? What is happening? Use the choice using phrases in Activity 2 in others by describing
phrases below to help you. groups the photos and
the photo shows - Ss: working in groups giving explanation
in the foreground/background - T: asking some students to describe helps students
on the left/right the photos to support the evidence for promote observation
in the top right corner Activity 1 skill and negotiation
in the bottom left corner - Ss: giving the description as the skill
judging by explanation
it/they etc. must be … - T: giving feedback
she/they etc. can’t be … - Ss: listening and taking notes if
II. While- speaking necessary
Activity 3. (Speaking)
Now compare photos 1 and 2. Describe - T: having one student read aloud the
a) the main similarities and b) the main instruction
differences. Use the phrases below to - Ss: one reading and the others
help you. listening
Similarities - T: eliciting the task by asking some - Checking
The common theme in the photos is … questions students’ attention
You can see … in both photos. + How many pictures should we to the task
Both photos show … compare?
In both photos there are … + Which expressions can we use to
Differences show the similarities?
The first photo shows …, whereas the + Which expressions can we use to
second photo shows … show differences?
In the first photo …, but in the second - Ss: listening and answering
photo … - T: reading aloud the words as model, - Repeating after the
One obvious difference is (that) … asking students to repeat chorally, and teacher gives
Unlike the first photo, the second photo correcting their pronunciation if students a chance of
shows … necessary pronouncing the
- Ss: listening and repeating target language
 Stage and Content Activities Aim
In contrast to the first photo, the second - T: asking students to share their correctly and
photo … opinions in groups of 3 or 4 reminds students to
Keys: vary on students’ answers - Ss: discussing in groups use the target
- T: getting some students to present language
- Ss: some students comparing the two appropriately and
photos and the others listening, giving accurately
comments
- T: giving feedback
- Ss: listening and taking notes if
necessary
Activity 4 (omit)
Activity 5 (Speaking) Work in pairs. - T: asking students to discuss the - Sharing ideas and
Discuss the questions and make notes. questions in pairs convincing partners
What should schools spend most money - Ss: discussing in pairs by giving
on: music, sport or school trips? Justify - T: getting some students to present explanation helps
your opinions. - Ss: some students taking about the students promote
questions and the others listening, negotiation skill
Keys: vary on students’ answers giving comments
- T: giving feedback
- Ss: listening and taking notes if
necessary
Activity 6. Listen to two candidates - T: playing the tape and asking
answering the question in an exam. students to listen
Compare your ideas with theirs. Are any - Ss: listening to two candidates
the same? Which are different? answering the question in an exam
- T: asking students to compare their
ideas with the candidates’, beginning
with the model “I agree ……/ I
disagree…..”
- Ss: discussing in groups
Keys: vary on students’ answers - T: getting some students to present
ideas
- Ss: some students expressing ideas - Peer-evaluation
and the others listening, giving helps students to
comments reflect on what they
- T: giving feedback have known or
- Ss: listening and taking notes if studied
necessary
Activity 7. KEY PHRASES. Put the - T: showing key phrases in Activity 7 - Asking students to
expressions into the correct column. and asking students to put them into the identify the usage
Keys correct items instead of just
Structuring your speech - Ss: answering giving them can
I’d like to start by saying / looking at … - T: giving feedback help to boost their
First of all, we need to decide / examine / - Ss: listening and taking notes cognitive thinking
look at / ask ourselves … - T: reading aloud the expressions as - Repeating after the
I’ll begin with … model, asking students to repeat teacher gives
Now I’d like to move on to … chorally, and correcting their students a chance of
pronunciation if necessary pronouncing the
 Stage and Content Activities Aim
This leads to my next point. - Ss: listening and repeating target language
Now let’s look at / move on to (the correctly and
question of) … reminds students to
Ordering points or opinions use the target
First, … Second, … Finally, … language
Justifying your opinions appropriately and
There are a number of reasons why I accurately
believe this. First, …
I’ll tell you why I think that.
The reason I say that is …
The main reason I feel this way is …
Summing up your opinion
To sum up, …
In conclusion, …
All in all, …
Just to summarize the main points, …
- T: reminding students of Speaking
Speaking Strategy: When you are Strategy
giving a short presentation, use set - Ss: listening and taking notes if
phrases to give opinions and necessary
justify them, and to structure your
speech
III. Post- speaking
Activity 8. Work in pairs. Turn to page - T: asking students to focus on the two - The task aims to
142 and do the extra speaking task. Use pictures on page142 make sure that
the phrases in exercise 2, 3 and 7 to help - Ss: looking at the photos students can have a
you. - T: asking students to compare the maximum of chance
pictures in pairs, using the phrases they to practice the target
have studied language
- Ss: working in pairs
- T: getting some students to present
ideas
- Ss: some students expressing ideas
and the others listening, giving
comments
- T: giving feedback
- Ss: listening and taking notes if
necessary
Tran Ngoc Chau - M1619002
Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Thanh - M1619033
Lam Ky Nhan - M1619026
Nguyen Le Ngoc Anh – M1619001
Nguyen Thi Kieu Diem - M1619007

Explanation Essay

Discourse competence, especially in spoken form, plays an important role in the ability to
understand and produce a connected, coherent speech (Kaplan & Knutson, 1993).
Therefore, it is necessary to include discourse makers in teaching and learning a language.
Teachers can choose numerous ways to develop discourse competence in their class,
however, all educators and researchers agree that the teaching methods should be based on
the framework of Halliday and Hasan (1976) about cohesive devices in the relationship
with discourse competence. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), there are
grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Grammatical cohesion consists of reference,
substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. Meanwhile, lexical cohesion consists of reiteration
and collocation.
The lesson is presented in this paper is an example of how an English teacher helps the
students practice applying cohesive devices in a speaking class using communicative
language teaching approach. The language target is that students will be able to give a
coherent and comprehensive description of several photos. The lesson is taken from Unit
7 in the textbook called Solutions at Pre-Intermediate level by Falla and Davies (2017). In
this lesson, the focus is mainly on conjunctions and the structures which can build up
students’ coherent speech when describing specific photos. However, teachers can also use
other cohesive devices in an implicit way during the lesson.
The reason why teachers value this textbook and choose this unit as a typical lesson for
their teaching cohesive devices is that this is one of a few textbooks officially used at
Vietnamese high schools which contains materials of discourse markers. It is clear to see
that many of the class activities designed in the textbook are structured for students to
acquire discourse competence with a lot of tasks and patterns which can used not only in
speaking lessons but also in writing ones.
The lesson of the textbook provides plenty of cohesive devices, such as adversative
conjunctions (but, in fact, even though) and sequencers (first, firstly, finally, at last).
Moreover, in the designed lesson plans, teachers have a chance to notice what fundamental
errors committed by the students relating to cohesive devices and give feedback to them.
With 45-minute period, this unit is designed in a logical input from vocabulary to some
phrases to describe the photos as well as any similarities or differences between them so
that students can use suitable conjunctions to connect the phrases easily and effectively. In
addition to that, the familiar topic can easily help students to absorb the knowledge from
the lesson and the wide range of speaking activities are combined with listening activities
can make them active during the lesson.
Cohesive devices as presented by Halliday and Hasan (1967) can affect students’ discourse
competence very much. However, it depends on the teachers’ practical application to the
design of a lesson in order to help students increase this competence. The lesson plan
presented in this paper has created the students a chance to learn and practice using
cohesive devices with their friends throughout the speaking class in a very short time. This
makes it very practical for teachers to apply in Vietnamese classes where time is very
limited.

Reference

Davies, P., & Falla, T. (2017). Solutions (Pre-Intermediate ed.). Oxford Press.

Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

Kaplan, M., & Knutson, E. (1993). Where Is the Text? Discourse Competence and the Foreign
Language Textbook. Mid-Atlantic Journal of Foreign Language Pedagogy, 1, 167-176.