In this activity, students are divided into small groups and told that they are members of the governing legislature in a hypothetical American state. They want to reduce their population of prisoners while also not adding to the state’s budget. Students must work together to devise a plan using the information provided below.

To generate students’ background knowledge, students may also read the article, “Behind Bars,” an editorial from the March 2008 issue of Arkansas Business, attached below.

Download worksheet and pre-reading article.

The Activity

Your state has one of the largest populations of prisoners per capita in the United States. You spend 10% of your $3 billion yearly budget just to maintain your growing prison system. One prisoner costs you $30,000 per year to keep. Your task is to devise ways to reduce the prison population while doing each of the following:

1)      Not endangering the public by releasing prisoners who should stay locked up

2)      Not adding to your overall budget

3)      Keeping the public happy

How will you do it? Remember that you are elected officials. Much of what you do will be judged on the next election day (two years from now). Prepare a plan of action and share it with the class.

Here is a list of alternative programs and their cost. You may choose from this list.

1. Allowing early parole for non-violent offenders. This means releasing people from prison early for good behavior, but continuing to monitor them and restrict their travel. This can save the state up to $20 million, but it is unpopular and has shown that recidivism amongst these inmates in much higher than the average population (75% vs. 50%).
2. Investing more in schools which are located in poor areas where much of the state’s violent crime is committed. This includes hiring new teachers, building new schools and creating new after-school programs for at-risk youths. It will add about 12% to your budget, but has the potential for much greater (but unknown) future benefit.
3. Investing in more rehabilitation programs in the prisons. This includes educational opportunities, psychological counseling and job skills development for current inmates. This will add 3% to your budget, but will not show any decrease in the prison population for several years (after the next election).
4. Creating work release programs. Such a program utilizes prisoners as manual labor for government construction projects. It will add less that 1% to the budget and could save up to 5%. Labor unions in the state are opposed to this idea, however, and they will have to be convinced it is a good idea.
5. Legalizing marijuana. This will drastically reduce the number of prisoners (by up to 10%) and can also add to the state budget at least $20 million in taxes. But this is very unpopular with voters. A recent poll showed that only 15% of the population would support such a measure.
6. Building new rehabilitation facilities exclusively for non-violent offenders. Places like this are more boarding schools than prisons and isolates prisoners so that violent prisoners cannot influence non-violent ones. This will add 5% to your budget, but can show a decrease of up to 10% within 10 years.
7. Eliminating the death penalty. This will save the state up to 2% of its budget because it is vastly more expensive to keep inmates on death row than it is to incarcerate them for life. However, a recent poll showed that such a measure has the support of only 40% of the population. Young voters, however, support the measure by a factor of 85% to 15%.
8. Providing tax breaks to businesses which hire ex-cons. This would make it more attractive for state businesses to hire former prisoners. Such a measure could potentially reduce recidivism by up to 20%, but would also result in the loss of several million dollars in taxes. The long-term benefits are greater, though, as fewer and fewer ex-cons go back to prison. The tax breaks would mean that other services would have to be cut, however. Most vulnerable would be medical services for the poor and new road construction.

Attached below is a sample lesson plan I designed for teaching the present perfect tense. Of note is that the lesson focuses on a particular communicative task, not the target structure specifically. it is very important to provide students with a real communicative purpose for the structures they learn so that they will know when and how to apply the lessons of the classroom in the real world.

It is also very important that classroom activities closely mirror contextualized language that is both useful and interesting to the students.

This lesson is comprised of dialogs and a variety of activities that will help students to discover, practice and use the target structure within real communicative context.

Download Materials

Below is a copy of the lesson plan cover page, included in the materials:

Grammar Lesson Plan: The Present Perfect Tense

Text Source: Three teacher-prepared conversation dialogs

1)      Class Demographics

• Topic: The Present Perfect Tense as used in two sample conversation dialogs to talk about things they have done already and haven’t done yet.
• Primary skills: listening, reading, writing
• Age Range of Students: Any literate adult over 18
• Type of Institution: Prepared with a private language school in mind
• Number of Students: 4-18
• Proficiency Level: low intermediate
• Length of Class: about two hours
• First Language Background: usually varied, but more likely Spanish

2)      Objectives

A. Language Skills

• Terminal Objectives: to use the Present Perfect Tense orally in a simulated and informal discussion role play dialog with a classmate to report and inquire about activities they have or have not done following the presented dialog format
• Enabling Objectives

1. Language Presentation

1. Demonstrate comprehension of three dialogs by forming hypotheses about who/what/where from them
   1. Read as they listen to dialogs, focusing on intonation aspects
   2. Demonstrate knowledge of the dialogs by responding to more detailed comprehension and vocabulary questions
      1. Practice dialogs with partners

2. Highlighting

1. Answer questions related to the target structure
2. Underline Present Perfect forms in the dialogs
3. Transfer Present Perfect forms from the sentences in the dialogs to a visual grid
4. Students formulate the rule for the construction of Present Perfect Tense
5. Students formulate the rule for when the structure is needed and its usefulness in a specific context (telling people about tasks/assignments/duties you have done already or have not done yet)

3. Controlled Activity

1. Complete dialogs by using Present Perfect and selecting from two alternatives
2. Practice dialogs orally

4. Semi-Controlled Activity

1. complete dialogs with Present Perfect Tense forms by selecting from a variety of possible activities
2. practice dialogs orally

5. Communicative Activity

1. generate a list of activities
2. terminal objective activity

B. Learning Strategies

• Cognitive

1. Gathering general information quickly by listening to a dialog
2. Deduce the meaning of the Present Perfect Tense by context

• Compensation

1. Use context to deduce dialog meanings and the usage of Present Perfect Tense
2. Communicate in small groups and in the class as a whole as a means to overcome limitations and gather meaning from a dialog

• Metacognitive

1. Use tactics that help to independently discover the Present Perfect Tense in a dialog.
2. Practice the use of intonation and context to piece together meaning from a dialog that contains new grammatical structures.
3. Using class discussion to evaluate personal inferences made in each activity

• Socio-Affective

1. Working with others in groups of varying sizes
2. Asking questions related to the material
3. Use of creativity to process information and lower anxiety

C. Learning Styles

• Visual

1. Students use photos, worksheets, an overhead projector and writing on the blackboard/whiteboard to help them understand two dialogs
2. Students listen to two dialog recordings
3. Students listen to their classmates practice several dialogs
4. Students listen to instructions from the teacher
5. Students complete worksheets
6. Students engage in small group work
7. Teacher encourages students to ask questions in case of confusion (related to receiving directions)
8. Students listen to dialogs by themselves
9. Students fill out worksheets by themselves
10. Students are encouraged to speak casually within their groups
11. Students are encouraged to reproduce the casual speech in their dialogs
12. Students discover grammar items in dialogs and infer from them its rule
13. Students are given individual listening/reading/worksheet tasks
14. Students are encouraged to come up with their own dialogs with varying levels of selective freedom
15. Students understand the dialogs through semi-controlled and free activities
16. Students work in groups
17. Students listen to dialogs about things people have done already or have not done yet

• Auditory

• Tactile

• Participatory

• Independent Learning

• Informal Communication

• Field Independent

• Field Dependent

• Topic-Centered

3)      Relevant Structural/Organizational Patterns

• Organization of a casual conversation. For example: I have already gone to the library and I haven’t cleaned the bathroom yet.

4)      Relevant Vocabulary Items (Past Participle verb forms)

studied

taken out

gone

found

started

eaten

loaded

mopped

finished

dusted

taken

5)  Materials

• All lesson plan worksheets
• Overhead transparencies of dialogs and highlighting grid
• An overhead projector marker
• Cassettes of the two dialogs
• One cassette player
• Chalk and blackboard
• Extra pens and pencils for students

Format: Workshop
Time: 45 minutes
Title: “Negotiating Face and Making Requests: Speech Changes and Imposition”
Target Students: Intermediate to advanced

One of the most important skills our students learn is how to use language differently in different situations and with different people. Speeches are not like telephone conversations. Essays are not like newspaper articles. And an email written to a friend is not like an email written to a professor.

The way in which we use language is the most important and effective tool we have for establishing the nature of our relationships with others. Strategies of deference and respect look very different from those of solidarity and intimacy. Our use of language is how we maintain our identity and membership in different discourse groups. It is also how we get what we want from others, whether they be our friends, our bosses or our teachers. Thus, in order to be successful communicators, our students need practice using these strategies.

In this workshop, teachers will review the concept of face negotiation and the two major strategies we use when establishing and maintaining our relationships with others. Then, teachers will examine and practice a lesson in which students explore the type of language used when making requests from. How does the way we use language change when the request is of greater or lesser imposition? Why does this happen and what is its relationship to the overall study of discourse and culture?

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What is Pair and Group Work?
Used in conjunction with individual and whole-class work, pair and group work is the act of dividing students so that they work cooperatively with only a small number of their classmates on a specific task assigned by their teacher.

Pair and group work first came into usage in the 1970s when teachers first noticed that more than 80% of all classroom talk was teacher talk. Pair and Group work was designed to do many things which are difficult to accomplish in other settings. For example, pair and group work can:

1. Allow for more student talk time
2. Encourage shy students to speak
3. Let students speak without the teacher listening
4. Encourage students to help and support each other
5. Provide variety to classroom activities
6. Give students more control over the lesson

Some important concepts related to using pair and group work are:

1. Students interact with each other as a means of practicing real-world English for a purpose that is interesting and challenging to them.
2. Students learn to depend on each other in the completion of specific tasks related to the objective of the group. For example, students can have different roles such as recorder, time-keeper or speaker and they must work together for a common purpose.
3. Students get a sense of safe competition when they work in small groups and share their conclusions with other members of the class. This can encourage students to work together more effectively in the completion of their task.
4. If students are to complete their task successfully, each member feels a sense of accountability in the task’s completion and is, thus, motivated to contribute.

Cooperative Skills Students Use in Pair and Group Work
For beginners or low-level students, much of the skills required for pair and group work will be difficult, but it is important to allow them to practice. It is also helpful for the teacher to provide them with examples of how one might complete these actions so that they are better prepared to use them in English while in their groups.

1. explain directions
2. offer suggestions
3. help each other without interfering
4. encourage each other
5. paraphrase
6. request a justification
7. extend each other’s utterances
8. express emotion
9. resolve conflict
10. criticize each other without giving offense

In addition, beginning students can be asked to only perform certain assignment tasks in English, while completing the more difficult tasks in their native language. As they become more and more used to this kind of activity, the teacher can ask them to use more English when they are in groups.

Steps to Designing Effective Pair and Group Work Activities
First of all, students who are not used to this type of activity may not respond positively to it at first, but the teacher should not take this as a bad sign. Over time, students will get used to and, eventually, thrive in such classroom situations.

It is a good idea to start as the whole group when the teacher gives directions. The directions should be clear and the teacher should be certain that all students understand. It may be helpful to write them on the board or include them in a handout. The instructions should give a clear objective and a time limit.

The activity should be one that is both challenging and interesting to the students, but not one that is beyond their skill level. It should also encourage students to work together to solve a problem or come to a group conclusion that is not necessarily known by the teacher. Most importantly, the activity must be one that allows for students to express their own opinions and ideas. It is only then that students will practice English in a way that most approximates real-world usage: creatively.

Then, divide students into groups or pairs. Groups are better for longer, more complex tasks and pairs are good for simple tasks. Group work is also good if you want students to share their results with their classmates at the end of the activity.

Groups can be created any way the teacher sees fit. Some teachers like to divide based on skill or activity level. Others prefer to divide randomly. It is sometimes good for student groups to be different in every activity so that there will be a greater variety of ideas.

Next, the teacher can assign different students specific tasks. One can be the timekeeper, while another can be the discussion leader. Yet another can be the recorder and write down all the group’s ideas. This is a good opportunity for students to take control over their own learning by choosing their own roles when they are in groups.

During the activity, the teacher should walk around the room and monitor the groups’ progress. She can answer questions and make sure that groups are on task. At this point, however, the students should be doing almost all of the talking.

When time is up, the teacher can then move the activity back to the whole group and ask each small group to share their ideas and conclusions. It is also helpful to encourage other students to share their opinions of what their classmates have concluded.

It is important to note that pair and group work is not useful for every type of language lesson, but it can be adapted for most. The skillful teacher knows how to build and manage such activities and create them so that they exploit the needs of her unique group of students.

Download PDF here

Format: Workshop
Time: 45 minutes
Title: “Fun with Prosody: Creative Explorations of Intonation in English”
Target Students: Low-intermediate to advanced, any age group

Much of our communication involves the successful interpretation of intonation. Often, a listener who is a non-native speaker may understand every word of an utterance, but still misunderstands it because of a lack of understanding of the target language’s prosodic patterns of intonation. Such “tone contour” can add stress to syllables, words or phrases as a means of expressing conversation or discourse cohesion and reference to shared knowledge.

For example, when a teacher asks a student, “Have you finished your homework?” and the student answers, “Yes, I finished my homework” (with stress on the word “my”), the student is communicating something very different than he would be if he had placed the stress differently.

I argue that this is an essential aspect of English and that our students should have the opportunity to learn and practice prosody in our classroom. In this workshop, I will discuss various forms of prosodic intonation and offer arguments for their inclusion in our lessons. Then, I will share several approaches and activities to teaching this skill to our students so that they can begin to grasp the potentially very complex system of intonation in English.

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