ESL Lesson Plan

...go to the following link for a copy of Rebecca Oxford's SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning), which is a well-known and widely used questionnaire:
http://ell.phil.tu-chemnitz.de/cing/frontend/questionnaires/oxford_quest.php

The questionnaire is divided into the following six categories: memory strategies, social strategies, affective strategies, metacognitive strategies, compensation strategies, and cognitive strategies. The strategies listed in each category are not a complete list of strategies and might not be relevant to your students. If that's the case, you may decide to change the wording, delete, or add some of your own. You might also decide to only work on one section at a time with your students. Depending on the level of your students, it might also be useful to have the questionnaire translated into their L1.

Here's the basic lesson plan:

1. Explain to the students that they will be completing a questionnaire and that there are no correct answers. The results might help them to understand themselves better and might also help the teacher to help them learn more effectively.
2. Have students fill in the questionnaire.
3. Ss discuss their answers with partners (is there a difference between use of strategies in class and at home?)
4. Feedback in large group- are there any other strategies that they use? What are the benefits/drawbacks of using each of the strategies?

For more information about language learning strategies, check out the following two books:

1. "Learning Strategies in Foreign and Second Language Classrooms" by Ernesto Macaro (2001). London: Continuum

2. "Language Learning Strategies" by Rebecca L. Oxford (1990). Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle.

Good luck!

Carol Rueckert
Writer, ESL Lesson Plan
E-mail: crueckert@eslemployment.com
Blog: www.esl-lesson-plan.com

"I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." - Chinese Proverb

Looking for more articles about lesson planning for the ESL classroom? Click HERE!

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About the author of this entry:
Carol, a native English-speaker who hails from the small town of St. Joseph in Minnesota, USA, and lived and worked in China for more than 7 years. During that time, she worked with students that range in age from three to more than sixty years old. She worked in universities, private language schools, grade schools, international schools, as well as private tutoring. Besides teaching, she also worked as a head teacher, an education manager, and a material development manager. In addition to working on this newsletter, she currently writes a monthly column for Time Out Beijing. Carol is also currently working on her MA in TESOL at the Oxford Brookes University in England. Look for her posts on the ESL-Jobs-Forum discussion boards!