I observed a video of a lesson in a high-intermediate/advanced class in the United Kingdom. The class consisted of eight adult students from a range of language backgrounds who appeared to be taking the class for academic purposes. The lesson was an integrated skills approach addressing listening, speaking, and writing as well as grammar and vocabulary. The topic was the second conditional. My key take-aways were the benefits and challenges of integrating skills development in a single lesson, the importance of integrated and scaffolding activities, the value of varied and complementary facilitation techniques, and the limitations that a lack of enthusiasm/rapport can have on an otherwise exceptional lesson plan.

The most significant feature I observed in this lesson was the integrated skills approach. In a single lesson, an impressive range of exercises/foci were addressed. For example, in addressing the main topic of the second conditional, the meaning or function was explained, the grammatical structure was reviewed, fluency and accuracy of oral production was practiced, and written production was practiced and assigned for homework. At the same time, vocabulary terms were introduced, oral contractions were practiced extensively, listening tasks were assigned, and pronunciation was addressed frequently through incidental error correction. These were all accomplished quite seamlessly through a broad theme, a given scenario, and a series of related activities. I think this was a very effective lesson as a result because students were engaged in a variety of ways but did not get lost or overwhelmed. On the other hand, one of the potential challenges I foresee with this approach is for the lesson to be fragmented or lose focus. In this case, for example, it was over 20 minutes into the lesson before the main objective of the second conditional was introduced and over 45 minutes (with only 15 minutes left) before the stated topic of “difficult choices” was taken up fully. In this case, I don’t think this was a significant problem because the activities were well integrated and because the objective was a review for the students. If the main objective was a new concept, I think the lesson would need to be more focused. I would be interested to learn more about integrated skills teaching methods to see how these challenges can be balanced.

My second key take-away from this lesson was what made the wide-ranged of skills practiced possible – the well-integrated activities with effective scaffolding and focused content. There were, essentially, two sets of activities. The first built from a scenario presented by the teacher. Starting from a photo, students deduced answers to questions in order to establish engagement with the content. Vocabulary was introduced related to the content understood so far and to come. An audio text was then presented to build on the photo, and students reconsidered the initial questions. A second presentation introduced a further listening task. This series of activities served as a warm-up, to establish vocabulary, to practice listening, and to provide an authentic communication scenario for the main activities. The main activities addressed the second conditional. This began with isolation directly from the initial activity and led into explanation. From here, students practiced oral and written production in many ways related to the initial scenario. There were many meaningful opportunities for practice because the teacher followed each set of activities with a new, scaffolding explanation and challenge: first, it was production of simple sentences from given content, then it was production of positive or negative conceptions from personal preference, followed by reversing the phrase and clause, and finally students produced the question form from given content and then uniquely based on personal preference. While many skills were addressed, the lesson was seamless for the students and momentum was maintained because the content was consistent and relatively simple.

A closely related strength of the lesson was the varied and comprehensive facilitation techniques. A good example is in the introduction of vocabulary. In a period of nearly ten minutes, the teacher addressed only three vocabulary terms, but each was fulsomely explored. Terms were identified in photos, realia, and role-play. Meaning was explained through contextual questions and discussion as well as use in a sample sentence. Syntax was also addressed in the sample sentence and identification of the part of speech. Fluency was built through choral and individual repetition of the sentence, and accuracy was built through error correction, identification of stressed syllables, and phonetic representation. This degree of engagement, with the limited content, ensures strong understanding and skill. I have a tendency to believe that more content is required in my lessons, and I will endeavour to consider deeper engagement with content first.

Other examples of effectively combining facilitation and assessment techniques included oral production through choral and individual repetition of provided sentences, choral and individual production of new sentences from the scenario or provided terms, and individual production to report on pair or group work. Reporting on partner production from pair/group work is great for assessment because it tests whether effective communication has taken place – productive by one student and receptive by the other – and whether the reporting student can produce. It was also very important that the teacher was active during the pair and group work because she provided corrective direction and advice to ensure the target language was being used. I was also interested to see the teacher ask for happy, angry, and sad inflections for more deeply communicative production. Written production included gap fill worksheets and production of unique sentences for personal expression including a homework worksheet for assessment. This teacher had many strong specific techniques I liked. For example, asking students to clarify a point about the homework just assigned ensured they knew what to do. Asking the class, “Do you agree with that?” when a student provides an answer is a great way to facilitate discussion, prompt peer error correction, and keep all students engaged even when one is primarily active. Finally, the physical cue of indicating words on fingers and bringing them together for contractions was effective for explanation and unobtrusive for error correction.

While technically very skilled, I found this teacher had some challenges with student enthusiasm in both the lesson plan and facilitation. For example, the warm-up activity was not particularly engaging, and this was compounded when the teacher provided weak confirmation or praise for student responses. This lack of positive feedback continued through most of the lesson. A lack of rapport may have been related and the teacher forgot a student’s name at one point as well. Finally, the teacher spoke very quickly at points, and provided unclear instructions for some activities. In response to the lack of enthusiasm, the teacher demanded it directly, but this was only moderately successful for a short period. This reinforced my appreciation that a well-designed lesson is only as good as its delivery and the relationship between the teacher and the students.

Overall, I found this lesson impressive. The technical skill of the teacher in designing the lesson and facilitating a wide range of skills-development with effective activities and facilitation/assessment techniques was inspiring. I identified a great deal of specific ideas to incorporate into my practice along with a key lesson that a given activity or content can be effectively engaged with in many ways using these specifics to create deeper learning. I will aim to maintain my strengths in rapport and classroom dynamics while adopting this use of focused lesson planning and diversity of techniques.