IATEFL POLAND COMPUTER SIG JOURNAL - Internet Lesson Plans

Technical requirements: One computer per group of 2-3 students with an Internet connection and a Web browser

Knowledge: students should have basic skills of searching for information in the Internet

Procedure: (before starting the proper lesson students should quickly revise reading numbers)

1. The teacher says: 'Write a list of facts about a company that you find essential in a company profile'. Students report back.

1. The teacher says: 'Go to http://www.global.yamaha.com and try to find the Yamaha facts section'. The teacher asks questions:

Then the teacher divides the class into 3 groups (or each group of 2-3 people at a computer gets one question) and students complete the table: (downloadable from here)

Students report back, then suggest the way they would combine all the pieces of information from the most to the least important.

2. Students go to http://www.gm.com and find the company profile. They compare the sequencing of information in the profile with their order and discuss the differences.

3. Learners are asked to locate particular facts within the General Motors company profile and match them to their Yamaha counterparts. Then they write down (or dictate to a partner) the phrases that incorporate them.

4. The teacher tells students to imagine they were given this list of facts about Yamaha to make a presentation. Take a quick look at it and go on to present a company profile.

1. Students write a profile of the Yamaha company using the phrases discussed. If there isn't a direct match between facts and phrases the teacher is of help.

Technical requirements: One computer per group of 2-3 students with an Internet connection and a Web browser

Required knowledge: students should have basic skills of searching for information in the Internet

1. The teacher asks: 'How many departments can you differentiate in a company?' Students give answers

2. If students don't mention 'Public Relations', the teacher explains the term to them: 'Public Relations is responsible for creating a positive public image of a company'

3. The teacher asks: 'What might be some specific resposibilities of people working in that department?' Students give answers.

1. The teacher divides the students into two groups: 'Yamaha group' and 'General Motors group'.

3. Students are to check the sites and report to the class what's most appealing about them. Then they give answers to the whole class.

4. The teacher asks students to check if the President of the company is introduced at the site and what he has to say about the policy or philosophy of the company. Both groups find the Presidents' messages on their sites as follows: 'GMability: Demonstrating Our Commitment to Doing it Right' and 'About Yamaha: President's Message'.

5. Students are given texts with gaps (1^st group gets Yamaha , 2^nd gets GM) and are asked to find the missing words.

GMability: Demonstrating Our Commitment To Doing it Right

General Motors enjoys a long tradition of…………….., integrity, and ………………… that has helped establish our reputation as a leader in corporate …………………. . We place a high value on communicating clear, ……………….., and truthful information about our performance to our employees, suppliers, dealers, investors, and customers.

GM developed the GMability web site in 2000 to further underscore our commitment to corporate responsibility. We realize that our annual reports do not reach everyone interested in our activities; GMability allows us to use the Internet to help bridge geographic and cultural boundaries.

GMability provides information about many of our initiatives, including those in the areas of environment, safety, community, and ………………….. Visitors to GMability can learn about our promising work in ………………………….., including………………..; find detailed information on the GM plants in their communities; compare our fuel economy to that of our competitors; discover more about the safety features of GM vehicles; and even contribute online to disaster relief efforts through GM Global Aid.

Visitors can also find our annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report, which documents our work to improve our operations and products, and to …………………economic, environmental, and social objectives into our daily business. GM has been issuing this report since 1994, and was the first automaker to do so.

At GM, we believe it is critical that we achieve success by doing things the right way, all around the globe. GMability helps keep track of our efforts. We encourage you to use it to follow our……………..

At Yamaha, we believe that music ………………..time and borders - barriers that usually prevent the world's people from forming strong ………………bonds. That's why we're committed to combining progress and …………………craftsmanship with rich ………………….and …………………to provide products and services that will bring our customers immense satisfaction. With our brand slogan, "CREATING 'KANDO' TOGETHER", we aim to create 'Kando' (it is a Japanese word that signifies an ……………. state of mind) that exceeds all expectations.
In this spirit, we look forward to serving you and hope you will enjoy your visit to our Website.

6. Both groups are asked to try to name the features of the style, using words like: matter-of-fact, technical, sterile, spiritual, emotional, inspired. Students report back

1. Students cross out any names or references to the names of the companies; what is left may serve as a structure for another President's message.

2. The teacher asks them to think of other brands that would fit into the image of matter-of-factness presented by GM or the inspirational approach of Yamaha's message. Then they write own message for one of the brands.

3. Learners now check if the website of the brand they have chosen contains a President's message. If so, they compare the two.

English-To-Go publishes both online, interactive educational materials for student use and photocopiable lessons for teachers to use in the classroom. There are two primary web sites: http://www.english-to-go.com and http://www.selfaccess.com - a self-study site for students. English-to-go.com produces new photocopiable 'Instant Lessons', 'Weekly Warmers', on-line 'Instant Workbooks' and an 'Anna Grammar' help page every week.

'Instant Lessons' are full lessons; complete with news articles, pre-reading, reading, grammar, post-reading exercises, teachers' notes and answer keys. Every lesson has at least nine exercises. Many of the lessons also have interactive 'Instant Workbooks' attached to them. These online activities for students are linked directly to the Instant Lessons. Grammar points are either extended, material recycled or students practise reading and listening using material on the same topics as those taught in class.

Weekly Warmers are short activities designed to stimulate and energise students. These can be used as lead-in activities, or fillers, and are sent in by teachers from around the globe as part of a competition to win a free 6-month subscription to English-to-go. 'Anna Grammar' provides help pages for teachers. Anna offers advice on some difficult grammar issues and answers a huge range of letters from perplexed teachers. Many of her replies also contain exercises.

Each Instant Lesson is added to a database of lessons, which can be searched by level, subject or skills. The database currently has more than 700 lessons from elementary level to advanced. The 'Weekly Warmers', 'Anna Grammars' and 'Instant Workbook' are also searchable.

The following link http://www.selfaccess.com/iatefl will take you to a page where a photocopiable 'Instant lesson' and on-line 'Instant Workbook' exercises have been provided.

Below is an account of how one teacher has used these particular materials with an Advanced Business English class.

Print the lesson and photocopy it. The email text in the Teachers' Notes also needs to be copied so there is one for each pair of students. Cut the email texts into strips.

This lesson was used with an Upper Intermediate to Advanced English Business class. The students were from predominantly Asian backgrounds. The topic of the lesson is first impressions and looks at business meetings; what to wear and not wear, and also how to behave. It is based around the following newspaper article:

NEW YORK Thu Feb 28 (Reuters) - You have 10 seconds; no more than 90. That's how long it takes to form a first impression, which for business travelers can ultimately sink or seal a deal.

In Pre-Reading Activity A: "What Would You Do?" students are presented with the following situation:

Imagine that you are a salesperson for a company selling machine parts. Your company is hoping to make a large sale to another company and you are going to meet a senior executive from that company for the first time next week. The company's offices are in your city and you will be meeting the executive there. You both speak the same language.
You have a week to prepare for this important meeting. At the meeting you want to persuade the executive that your product is the best on the market.

Following this, they are asked to rank items in a list in terms of importance. For example:

Following the ranking exercise, a number of possible settings for different types of business meetings are given and students are asked to match clothing and situations.

Before the Reading Activities, learners read a number of statements, such as "You do not need to wear a tie in Brazil when you are doing business", and asked to state whether these are True or False.

In Reading activity A: Understanding the Headline, students read only the heading and first paragraph of the newspaper article to ensure they understand the analogy with baseball.

In Reading Activity B: Finding Ideas, students were asked to re-examine the ideas from the Pre-Reading Activity B: True or False, and find the paragraphs where they were mentioned in the article. For example: Idea a. - paragraph 6

As they were interested and involved with the topic, students first completed Activity D: Thinking Carefully before the language and writing activities. During the activity, students also raised a number of other issues, such as the appropriate colour of clothing for meetings. Interestingly enough, the class felt that red skirts on women would be inappropriate as they saw red as a dominant, aggressive colour. Black was also seen as a bad colour to wear, because it could be perceived as depressing. It was deemed that men should wear "boring" coloured suits, such as navy blue or grey, but they should also wear "interesting ties" to show they had personality. Vertical stripes were fine in shirts but horizontal stripes were to be avoided, and there was a class vote on whether perfume or aftershave should be worn. The outcome was "no". The issue of footwear raised a great deal of interest and it was mentioned that in Japan you should wear brand new shoes. People felt you could tell a lot about a person by their footwear and so a class check of footwear was carried out.

To finish this part of the lesson, learners worked in pairs to complete Post Reading Activity C: Language, which focused on conditional sentences. This was done in pairs and although some found it challenging, all pairs completed it successfully.

After finishing this part of the language section, the class moved on to a computer lab. Students logged on to this site, http://www.instantworkbook.com, using a username and password that was valid for five days. This password allowed students to view only the three grammar exercises linked to "The Business of First Impressions" Instant Lesson.

Students were asked to complete three grammar activities – all focused on conditional sentences. The first two were directly linked to the business topic and the third was more generally on the use of the conditional. The third grammar exercise was given as homework and students were also asked to print out this exercise and highlight the answers before handing it in at the beginning of the next class.

In the computer lab, students were placed in pairs – two students per one computer. This was done to increase peer interaction and led to much discussion before choices were selected. It also prevents students from "clicking" through exercises.

After completing the second grammar exercise in which students had to choose the correct conditional sentence that matched each business situation, students were presented with the cut up text of a business email and asked to order it. This email then functioned as a model.

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 17:14:14 +1200
From: Tom Barrett <tom.b@english-to-go.com>
Subject: Meeting Next Week
To: John Brown <johnbr@st.luc.co.aus>

Just to confirm I'll see you at 3 p.m. next Tuesday at your office. I'll bring the software demos. I think you'll be especially interested in seeing "Office Independent" - our new bookkeeping program.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the test match this weekend. I still think Australia is on top. England will have a real job batting their way out of this one!

The ordering exercise was completed in pairs and then each student was asked to write their own email for the remainder of the session and, if necessary, as homework.

Imagine you are a sales executive and you need to write an e-mail to confirm meeting arrangements. On Wednesday you phoned John Brown, an executive working for a publishing company, St. Lucia Press. You arranged to meet him next week at his office to show him your company's latest software. It is now Friday afternoon and you are e-mailing him to remind him of the arrangement to meet.

The email was printed and saved onto a disk to allow for peer correction in the following class.

Students really enjoyed the discussions that ensued from this lesson. They all had something to say and many interesting ideas were raised. The grammar exercises proved great revision and reinforcement on the use of conditionals.

5. Students are given texts with gaps (1st group gets Yamaha , 2nd gets GM) and are asked to find the missing words.

GMability: Demonstrating Our Commitment To Doing it Right

5. Students are given texts with gaps (1^st group gets Yamaha , 2^nd gets GM) and are asked to find the missing words.