ESL Lesson Plan

... to be embraced. In fact, you may already be using CALL in your classrooms without realizing it.

One suggestion for using CALL is to take students to a computer room for a lesson. There should be one computer for each student, but if there aren't enough, you can have students pair up to do the activity.

1. Have students write an essay on a topic in a Word document (either as homework or as in-class work).
2. Have students save their essays to the desktop, saving them as "Name 1".
3. Have students switch seats.
4. Have the students open up the other person's document, change the color of the fonts, and allow time to make grammar, punctuation or language usage changes.
5. Have students save the document as "Name 2".
6. Have students switch seats again and repeat the process, this time, saving it as "Name 3".
7. Finally, have the students go back to their original seats to look through the changes that have been made. Do they agree or disagree with the changes? Monitor the students and give feedback.
8. Have students write a final copy, integrating the changes that were suggested to them by the other students.

Have you ever tried this or a similar CALL activity? Feel free to share your experiences here.

Hope that helps!

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 hailing from the small town of St. Joseph in Minnesota, USA, worked in China for more than 7 years. During that time, she worked at universities, private language schools, grade schools, international schools, and did private tutoring as well. 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 also writes a monthly column for Time Out Beijing, authors ESL textbooks for publishing houses in China, and is an Editor for Garnet Publishing in Reading, England. Carol holds a BA in Communications from the College of St. Benedict/ St. John's University, and a CELTA, and has just finished her MA TESOL course at Oxford Brookes University. Look for her posts on the ESL-Jobs-Forum discussion boards!