教学一线 | A reading lesson with students' real problems as clues

A psychologist’s speech

3E英语工作室 翟焕玉

In September 2023, Tangshan Education Bureau organized the high-quality lesson competition, and this lesson won the first prize.

Emphasizing the teaching-learning- assessment alignment. 

The English curriculum aims to promote learning and teaching through assessment, and embed assessment throughout the whole process of teaching and learning in the subject. For students, it focuses on motivating them to take the initiative to learn, and guides them to become designers, participants, and collaborators of a host of assessment activities so that, in future, they will consciously use assessment outcomes to improve how they learn. For teachers, emphasis is placed on guiding them to apply assessment methods and outcomes scientifically, to provide students with timely feedback and support according to students’ performance, and to reflect on teaching practice and effectiveness, so that ultimately teaching and learning complement and improve each other. The curriculum firmly endorses using a combination of formative and summative assessment, and aims to establish an English curriculum assessment system with multiple participants, diverse approaches,  and orientation towards competency.

According to the chart we know teaching, learning and assessment activities have clear objectives. Teacher's teaching is a guiding activity to help students achieve their objectives. Students' learning is a learning activity to achieve the objectives. Teachers' evaluation of students learning performance is an evaluation activity to monitor the achievement of objectives. In short, what is taught is what is learned, what is learned is what is evaluated and what is evaluated is what is taught.

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education 2022 proposed: In the course, we should strengthen the connection between knowledge learning and students' real life, enhance students' ability to solve real problems. (教育部，2022a)

In the teaching, based on problem solving, solving the problem is a clear clue. It is also the starting point for teachers to implement deep learning. Students' real problems are the start of teaching and learning motivation. Students learn deeply in order to solve problems. The teaching ending is to solve problems by using what they learned.（Lu Juan, Kang Shaowei, Liang Wenxia, 2023）

In the process of learning, teachers guide students to dig deeply into the text, establish the connection between knowledge, construct structural knowledge and promote students' deep understanding of knowledge. The effect of deep learning is reflected in the fact that the students can transfer what they have learned and solve problems in life.（Lu Juan, Kang Shaowei,Liang Wenxia, 2023）

What:

The theme category of the text is human and self. The thematic group is life and study, the subtopic is physical and mental health, the ability of anti-frustration, and the awareness of cherishing life. A psychologist named Alice Bryant introduced her job in the speech in order to help teenagers to know about their mental and physical changes during puberty and the influences that social media and technology brought to life. Make the students realize that feeling stressed is a normal phenomenon and need to deal with it positively. If they need help, the psychologists can try their best to help them get through, giving them suggestions and methods. Mental health is as important as body health. When students have some mental problems, teenagers should have the courage to ask counselors or psychologists for help.

Why:

In this text, by the analysis of teenagers' characteristics and suggestions of coping with the stress,  the psychologist introduced her job responsibility, gave teenagers advice on how to treat stress, encouraged them to talk with counselors positively and pay attention to the mental growth of teenagers.

How:

The text is a speech. There are seven paragraphs in total, 417 words. The main tense is the simple present tense, supplemented by the present continuous tense. Owing to the expressing need, the writer used several complicated sentences, such as the object clause, the attributive clause, adverbial clause guided by when, if and so on. The structure of the passage is deduction and summary.

In the first paragraph, the psychologist-Alice Bryant introduced her own research content. Paragraph 2 to paragraph 6 are body parts. The last paragraph proposes suggestions and shows us the purpose of the writer. In the second paragraph, the writer introduces the three problems teenagers faced. From the 3rd paragraph, we know social media and technologies can make the problems even worse. In the next paragraph, the writer implies it's normal to feel stressed for teenagers in their daily life. The most important thing is to learn how to cope with it.  The last two sentences of this paragraph are transitioning sentences and are closely related to the next paragraph. In paragraph 5, the writer used  four "I can…" sentence patterns to introduce what psychologists can offer to the teenagers. The sixth one tells us how to contact  Alice. The whole speech uses self-introduction as the beginning, starts with the teenagers' problems and talks about  encouraging them to solve problems. The opinions are obvious, full of logic.

The students are from Class Eight, Grade Eight of our school. They have read English graded books since the second term of Grade Seven. After more than one year's English learning in Junior High School, they have the ability to use some reading skills in practice.  Most of them are interested in English and have the strong desire to express. However,  their English levels are quite different. I can organize group work to help them learn from each other and narrow the gap. The text is from extracurricular materials. It's a little longer with more new words.  Because it involves the knowledge of psychology with several long and complicated sentences, it is not easy for students to understand. The teacher needs to guide them to analyze the structure of the passage, learn related language knowledge, provide scaffold and give students timely feedback and help by observation and asking questions etc.

Students' real problems create the real context for them to learn. It runs through the whole course of the lesson, including applying and practicing, transferring and creating activities. That is the situational teaching method. I also use activity- based teaching approach. Students learn the language knowledge, and improve their skills and thinking quality by finishing a series of activities. Some of the activities are finished by communication between students and the teacher or among students, communicative teaching method is used.

At the end of this class, students are able to:

1. Get and sort the detailed information about the psychologist's speech by asking questions and filling in the blanks, to construct structural knowledge gradually.

2. Clarify the relationship between paragraphs and use the structural knowledge to finish interview by asking questions autonomously and pair work.

3. Think about the solutions of feeling anxious and stressed by discussing in groups, explore the writer's writing purpose and put them into real life,  to solve their mental problems in time.

Teaching focus: 1 and 2

Step 1: Lead in

At the beginning of this lesson, I show the learning objectives, it can help students know what they will achieve in this class. Clear destination may motivate them to make an effort.

Several days before the class, I made a simple survey on how often students feel stressed. To lead in, I show the result of the survey on the screen. Students try to describe the content of the survey. I ask them why they are under pressure. Volunteers share their different reasons.

I use the result of the survey to lead in. Students share the reasons of being stressed. There are the real problems. Presenting students' real problems can create a real situation, stimulate students' reading motivation and the desire of solving problems. It can also be better connected with the content of the reading material.

The teacher listened to students' expression and communicate with them, giving proper feedback and encouragement.

Step 2: 

The teacher shows the title of the passage. As we know, psychologist is the key word of it. So I ask this question "What is a psychologist" to check  students' understanding and learn this word.

I know for most students, psychologist is a new word, but also the key word in this passage. I show a picture to help them understand.

I give students feedback according to their answers. If they can't say, it doesn't matter. I will lead them to read and find out.

Step 3:

Considering the length of the article, during reading time, I lead students to read wholly first. Then read the details according to different parts.

The first time of reading, students check the answers to this question. What is a psychologist?

Students will check if their answers are the same as the text said. By observing students finish their learning sheets and listening to the responses, the teacher judge if they can locate the information they need.

Next, students read paragraph 2 to paragraph 3 and answer two questions:

1. What are three problems of teenagers according to the passage?

2. What can make this problems even worse? Why?

Then I will add questions such as: How can you find out the answers quickly? What's the topic sentence of Paragraph 2? It involves the reading skills.

On the one hand, I use questions to help students get detailed Information step by step. On the other hand, I use the last question to help students reflect the reading strategies.

According to students’ performances, the teacher help them correct the pronunciation of words. If students can't express correctly, if it is necessary, explain the meaning of words or phrases.

Students go on reading Paragraph 4 and fill in the blanks. My purpose is to ask them to continue to get the detailed information. I will add one more question — What does these changes refer to?

According to students answers, I can judge which word we need to emphasize and explain, lead them to read correctly.

The last time of reading, students answer the questions to know what the psychologist can do for teenagers, how to contact Alice or counsellors and mental health is as important as body health.

 I observe students if they can locate the content. If they have difficulty, I will give them some tips or guide, providing feedback or encouragement.

The design of reading activities is to help students get, sort and integrate the detailed information, train their reading ability, learn language knowledge and lay foundation for applying activities.

Step 4:

Students look at the blackboard design, refine the structural knowledge along with the teacher. Encouraged by the teacher, students discuss and ask questions on the content of the text.

Based on sorting the detailed information of the passage, make a summary and refine the structural knowledge by asking questions and integrating information. Students think reversely and express with their own language. You can not only improve students' thinking quality, but also provide language scaffold for interview.Students work in Paris. One student asks at least three questions, the other plays the role of a psychologist and answers questions, finish an interview.

Role-play can offer realistic situation for students. It can increase students' interest in this activity. They use the language in the text to have a deep understanding about it. Promote the  internalization of the language. Learning activities are from learning and understanding to applying and practicing.

After students' presentation,I use several questions to guide them to learn to appreciate the shining points,giving more encouragement. Assessment focuses on how many questions students asked, their pronunciation and fluency.

Step 5:

About transferring and creating activities, I design two activities. The first is a question for students---What does the writer want to tell us?

My aim is to help students explore the writer's purpose — the thematic meaning of the text.

The teacher observe students if they have difficulty answering this question, if it's necessary, give them some tips or guide them to say.

The second activity is: think about and share their opinions according to their real problems, they need to discuss and talk about.

1. When you have problems, whom will you talk to? A psychologist, a counselor, your parents,your teacher or your friends?

2. In what ways can they help you? Besides talking to others, do you know other ways to cope with stress?

Based on students' real problems mentioned at the beginning of the class, I use the questions to lead them to think about the solutions. It can help students transfer and use the language they've learned. After this lesson, they're able to treat pressure properly. If they have difficulty dealing with pressure, they can not only ask psychologists but also teachers, parents or friends for help. At the same time, summarize the ways to deal with pressure, learn from each other and solve problems.

The teacher will join some groups' discussion, listen to their opinions and give some help necessarily. Then I will lead students to communicate with each other after volunteers' presentation. It is a training for other students' listening skills. The students can also recur language knowledge they've learnt in this lesson. The following questions are I asked:

Who will ..... talk to?

In what ways they can help him/her? What ways to cope with the stress can we learn from him/her?

Will you try .......'s advice?

Homework:

I set two kinds of homework- must do and have to do. Students need to write a short passage or several sentences to introduce what they benefit from this lesson. Of course, they need to use the language knowledge in this passage consciously. As for having to do, students read the passage aloud.

Look at the blackboard design, it includes not only the title but also detailed information. We finish it step by step. Students sort the information into five parts, introduction, problems, facts, solutions and purpose. It shows the clear structure of the passage. It provides the scaffold for students to construct structural knowledge.

The text of this lesson is selected from the group reading graded reading materials. The content is about a psychologist's speech. There are many new words for students. Most of the new words are abstract words. Students are not familiar with the topic, so they're lack of related background knowledge, Considering students' learning situation, I start with the students' real problems to connect with the content of the reading material. Students' problems are the clue of the whole lesson. Solving the real problems is the theoretical basis. This lesson has the following characteristics.

1. Carry out instructional and learning activities based on solving students’ real problems. Before the class, I organized my students to do a simple survey- How often they're under pressure and show the survey result with them. Students describe the results and talk about the reason why they feel stressed. I told students reading this passage may be so helpful to them. Therefore, students' real problems are the start of this lesson. It can connect students' real life with the context of the reading material. It can stimulate students' reading motivation. During reading, I use several questions to connect reading activities together to sort the detailed information of Alice's speech and refine structural knowledge. The scene setting of applying and practicing activity is also based on students' real problems. Students need to ask questions autonomously and finish interview. The foothold of transferring and creating activities is to help students solve the problems of how to reduce the stress at the beginning of the class. I organize students to discuss questions, and watch a video to open their mind, providing language scaffolds. The whole class starts with raising problems and ends with solving problems.

2. Practice the theories of English Curriculum Standards of Compulsory Education 2022, the consistency of teaching, learning and assessment, depending on the analysis of the text and students. I set the teaching objectives based on learning and understanding, applying and practicing, transferring and creating. Teaching activities correspond to teaching objectives in the process of implementing teaching activities. The teacher observed  students complete  the learning plan. Listen to the answers and presentation and give them timely feedback and suggestions. After interview and sharing opinions, these two production activities, I mainly use the questions to organize the interaction between the teacher and students, giving some assessment and encouragement or suggestions. It can help students recur the language knowledge as well.

3. Reflect the teaching effects: At the beginning of the class, students behaved cautiously. From the students end production, they're able to express their opinions actively with the simple language scaffold. They can transfer the language knowledge in the text by watching the video. Students open their mind to solve the problems, so the teaching effect is good. Students who raise up their hands have more chances to speak, so I don't take care of all of them. Some students' pronunciation in the process of expressing is not accurate enough. It reflects the real production of students. So the teacher used word band, paraphrase, predicting in the context or even giving some students Chinese to help them break through the vocabulary barrier. Some students don't learn all the correct pronunciation in a class. I give choices or help them correct in the questioning tone. In the exploration of the meaning of the theme, I give students enough time to read the last paragraph of the passage, students will express better.