LESSON TITLE: ______Vocabulary: Note taking_______ Lesson #: __2____

TEACHER NAME: __Jess Morales_____________DATE:__4/8/2014____________

Attach any handouts or materials required for this lesson.
Preparation/Planning
ESL Course: Grammar
Level

Beginning
!

Intermediate
!

Advanced
X

Multilevel
!
Topic/Theme: Writing

Objectives
Listening
Speaking
Reading Students will be able to identify key vocabulary words, including specific
domain/content vocabulary, for a news article.
Writing Students will be able to develop their note taking skills by reducing the
amount of writing they do and by writing concise notes, as aided with the
use of key words.
Bridging
What background knowledge
do the students already have?
The students have been learning new vocabulary in isolation
and in context, and this will be applicable because the students
will have the opportunity to use both of these skills.
The students have also practiced reading news articles and
identifying unknown vocabulary words. This lesson will partly
draw on this experience.
What will you do to activate
or link students prior
knowledge or experience to
upcoming content?
I will have the students talk in pairs about their partners
previous presentations (i.e., student A tells student B about
what they remember of student Bs previous vocabulary
presentations).
This will highlight the difficulty of remembering information,
and of the need for note taking.
This is directly applicable to the students futures because they
wish to enroll in a university and their note-taking skills will
need to be developed/improved. I will help them with this by
helping them identify key information and terms to use as
notes.
Engagement with New Material
What will you do to engage
students in the active learning
of the new material?
I will demonstrate a simple cognitive reading strategy, writing
in the margins, using a news article. This can then be rewritten
as a set of rudimentary notes. (Whole-Class/ I do...)
o During this presentation, I will do a think aloud to show
them how I determined what information was important.
o In this process, I will identify a small set of vocabulary
that will help to categorize the news article.
Guided practice- The class will then be guided through the
application of this strategy using a new article (We do...).
o I will use structured questions (e.g. who, what, when,
where, why, how) to help them identify the topic, main
idea, and key vocabulary.
o In this step, I will include the students connection to the
reading and summary.
What will you do to ensure
that all students are engaged?
I will be asking some of the students for their participation in
completing the above step by having them share their ideas with
the whole class.
I will provide the students with a number of newspapers, and it
will be up to them to choose an article that suits their personal
interests. The students will then use the newspaper to practice
the lesson. (You do...)
Application
What opportunities will you
provide students to practice
and apply their
knowledge/skill to meet the
objectives for this lesson? To
apply to other contexts?
Collaborative-learning- The students will work in pairs (or in a
group of three) to identify the topic, main idea, and key
vocabulary for their chosen news article. The students will then
write their notes on a note card (1 note card for each student).
Accountability- Upon completion of the above step, the students
will then change partners and exchange their note cards.
o The students new partner will then try and guess the
topic of their partners article.
o If the students are unable to do this, the partner may
start asking questions using the notes to try and identify
the topic.
(If the topic was Southern Californias earthquake, the student may ask
Was it the recent earthquake? Did it have to do with damage to the
infrastructure? And so on.)

Assessment
How will you assess their
learning of the objectives?
My cooperating teacher and I will be doing running
comprehension checks and answering questions to clarify the
objective of the lesson.
The students will have to be accountable to each other since the
success of one group will also be determined by their partners
comprehension. That is, the students will provide each other
with feedback on how easy or difficult it was to identify the
topic of the article.
The students will write their key vocabulary on a note card that
they will turn in at the end of the lesson.
Closing
How will you help students
recap the learning and link it
back to the original purpose of
the lesson?
I will reiterate the goals of the lesson and of its practical use in
the students future.
The lesson will also be repeated in the next lesson, though
utilizing trade journals. This is to serve as a gradual progression
of note taking with different, more difficult texts that make
more use of academic language and academic vocabulary.
I will give the students a handout on useful note taking tips.
Technology
If applicable for your context
and your lesson, how will you
meaningfully integrate
technology into your lesson?

I will be using the projector, but will otherwise use newspapers
for this lesson.
The newspapers are the Los Angeles Times and the Union
Tribune from early April.



TAKING LECTURE NOTES
I. There are many reasons for taking lecture notes.
A. Making yourself take notes forces you to listen carefully and test your understanding of
the material.
B. When you are reviewing, notes provide a gauge to what is important in the text.
C. Personal notes are usually easier to remember than the text.
D. The writing down of important points helps you to remember then even before you have
studied the material formally.
II. Instructors usually give clues to what is important to take down. Some of the more
common clues are:
A. Material written on the blackboard.
B. Repetition
C. Emphasis
1. Emphasis can be judged by tone of voice and gesture.
2. Emphasis can be judged by the amount of time the instructor spends on points and the
number of examples he or she uses.
D. Word signals (e.g. "There are two points of view on . . . " "The third reason is . . . " " In
conclusion . . . ")
E. Summaries given at the end of class.
F. Reviews given at the beginning of class.

III. Each student should develop his or her own method of taking notes, but most students
find the following suggestions helpful:
A. Make your notes brief.
1. Never use a sentence where you can use a phrase. Never use a phrase where you can
use a word.
2. Use abbreviations and symbols, but be consistent.
B. Put most notes in your own words. However, the following should be noted exactly:
1. Formulas
2. Definitions
3. Specific facts
C. Use outline form and/or a numbering system. Indention helps you distinguish major
from minor points.
D. If you miss a statement, write key words, skip a few spaces, and get the info later.
E. Don't try to use every space on the page. Leave room for coordinating your notes with
the text after the lecture. (You may want to list key terms in the margin or make a
summary of the contents of the page.)
F. Date your notes. Perhaps number the pages.