Skill Area: Reading

Textbook Unit: In Charge, Unit 1-Food for Thought

Lesson Plan Revision: The Words Most Popular Beverage, pages 12-14
Context: EFL class for adults, 18 and up. High intermediate or advanced class
PART A: INTEGRATED SKILLS
PRE-READING TASK
Purpose
Our purpose is to activate key metacognitive skills that are crucial for reading comprehension. In addition to
promoting communication in authentic situations (Willis, 1996), task based learning teaching is a good problemsolving framework for reading comprehension development. By activating students prior knowledge and
equipping them with tools for active reading, we are attempting to further their metacognitive development through
the presentation of challenging and meaningful tasks.
Procedure
Teacher Preparation:
The teacher will need to think of the ways to activate students background knowledge. A good start would be to
ask them: What is your favorite beverage and why? What do you like about it.
The teacher will need to prepare a questionnaire for the students.
The teacher will need to have a few different ideas of how the data could be represented visually, as some
students may not have this skill set. Or, they may not be prepared to demonstrate their knowledge of how to
graph in a language class.
The teacher will also need to know different aspects of coffee culture around the world. For example, in Ethiopia
coffee ceremonies are held and are considered high honors. In other countries, coffee is consumed in the
morning while reading the paper, or after dinner with dessert. It is important for the teacher to have a general idea
of how coffee drinking are influenced by cultural practices.
Student Task Instructions:

After a brief discussion on students favorite beverage each student will receive a questionnaire to fill out.

Interview three people to find out their favourite beverage. The goal

is to find out why each person likes the drink, how often he/she drinks
it, what time of day he/she drinks it, and what he/she adds to the
beverage, if anything.
Beverage
Coffee
Tea Juice Latte Macchiato
Other Drinks (Red Bull)
Reason
Tastes Good
Frequency
Every Night With Dinner
Additions
Vodka
After you have completed the interview phase, you should form a circle to compile data and discuss

findings with the entire class.

Class collects findings to see what beverage or beverages are the most popular.

Beverage
Coffee
Tea
Juice
Latte Macchiato
Other Drink
Total
Present questionnaire results in the form of a graph and draw the graph on one side of the board.

Discussion:

The teacher will lead a class discussion of the findings by asking individual students to report on most

popular drinks; explain the graph and what the data showed.
If coffee does not come up as number one, teacher and students discuss why. Teacher will introduce the
idea of coffee culture in different social contexts around the world.

The teacher will finalize the discussion by asking students to write down three facts that they already

know about coffee. Once students write down their facts, teacher asks students to share one of things that
they wrote. When sharing these facts aloud, the teacher will encourage students not to repeat what others
have said.
The teacher will also have to record key terms from what the students share as they go around the class.

Or, the teacher can write what students share on the board in list form next to the graph.
Product
Through negotiation of the task, students will produce a greater sense of community in the classroom and a larger
body of shared knowledge about each other. Students will have a visual product to represent the information they
gathered and a set of facts to accompany what they know about the topic of the day COFFEE.
WHILE-READING TASK
Purpose
Students will find out information on their topic and share this information with other groups. The students fill the
information gap, and it makes the task meaningful. As students read, they will write on the text using the Directed
Notes key (see below) for easier referral to the text after they read.
Directed Notes Key
? Confusing sentences, points, ideas that can lead to discussion.
! Interesting, surprising, humorous moments or phrases.
Underline Important sentences that help explain, clarify, and underscore the authors argument or
other significant points in the text.
Box or circle Words you do not understand.
*Star* Character development, descriptions of visual details (shape, color, texture, sounds, smells),
ironical statements (those that say one thing and mean another), symbols (objects or images that have
more than one level of meaning), abstract idea or conflicting forces (illusion vs. reality, death vs. rebirth,
individual vs. society, fate vs. free will, servitude vs. freedom, where you were born vs. where you live
now), and messages, themes, issues or problems in the text.
Highlight repeating themes, words, and phrase
Procedure
Teacher Preparation:
Teacher will need to provide the text The Worlds Most Popular Beverage to the students.
Teacher will need to divide the text into four parts (jigsaw reading), divide students into groups of four and give
each group one part of the text.
Teacher will also need to be familiar with the Directed Notes Key and be able to explain its benefits, or create
one that works for him/her.
As the teacher writes new words on the board and brainstorms the terms with the students, the teacher can
additionally ask students if the new learned word is a noun, adjective etc, and can work on pronunciation with
them.
As incidental mistakes occur throughout the discussion, the teacher will use recasting, when appropriate, in order
to improve students accuracy.
Student Task (1) Instructions:

Read the text individually and mark up the text with Directed Notes Key.

After you have read and marked up the text, refer back to the text and find information that is specific to
your assigned topic.

Topics
Group 1: Coffee across cultures
Group 2: History of coffee
Group 3: Coffee beans
Group 4: Coffee and Health

Students receive cards with the number of their group (1, 2, 3, 4). After the numbered group work,
students form Expert Groups. In each Expert Group, there should be one student with a different text excerpt.
Student Task (2) Instructions:

Tell the others about what you have found on your topic. Present the results in the form of a table. Be

prepared to share your results with the entire class.

Coffee across
History of
Topic
cultures
Coffee
3 Facts that we consider
important
Question
Write one question that is not covered in the article for each topic.

Coffee
Beans

Coffee and
Health

Product
Students will create a table of the information they find from the text.
From the creation of this product, students increase their awareness of cross-cultural differences.
Teacher facilitates students fluency and accuracy, when appropriate.
POST-READING TASK
Purpose
Students will add to the list of facts about coffee that they created collectively as a class. They will compare what
they knew before reading the article and what they now know after reading the article. However, there are some
things that may still be unknown about this vast topic. As a class, teacher and students will discuss the limits of
their coffee knowledge, even after reading the article. Students will negotiate ways to bridge this knowledge by
conducting computer research. Students will then present their results in the form of a brochure.
Procedure
Student Task Instructions:

Students refer to the questions they formulated in their Expert Groups.

Conduct research on the Internet to find out the answers for the questions you came up in your Expert

Groups.
Try to give very specific and detailed terms into the search engines and always cite your sources.
Collect your data and create a brochure about coffee in class. You can use all the information you have

found so far, e.g. from the text, from the questionnaire etc. The brochure should not only contain information
and text, but also illustrations and formatting.
In order to work more efficiently, you should divide your class into groups which work on different topics

(like illustration, text, design, etc).

Students will use the Internet to explore answers to other topics of interest related to coffee and they

may add this to the brochure.

Each group creates one brochure about coffee using all of the information they found during the pre-,

while and post-reading phases (questionnaire results, questions and answers text and internet research),
as well as illustrate their brochure.
Product
Students will create a brochure.
PART B: RAISING CULTURAL AWARENESS
Purpose
Students will reconsider the use of the word Arab, along with what is meant by the term Middle East. The

underlying idea of this task is to explore how ethnic groups choose to name themselves versus names that are
assigned to them by others.
Procedure
Teacher Preparation:
Teacher will need to have an understanding of these issues.
- See more at: http://edlinguist.com/teaching/tblt#sthash.rvQllpIi.dpuf