For the course EDPE-3018: Theory and Methodology of the Teaching of English in Elementary School, we were assigned a Methods and Approaches Project. This project was to be completed in groups. The professor would select the members of each group and assign each one a method or approach covered in the course textbook: Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. I was part of group #3, and we were assigned The Lexical Approach, which is covered in chapter twelve of the textbook.

 

     For this project, we would have to research and study the assigned approach, using both the textbook and outside resources. Then, on a date assigned by the professor, our group would take over the class period to deliver a presentation that would be divided into two parts. First, we would have to teach our classmates about the lexical approach, summarizing and focusing on specific aspects of it. Then, during the last twenty-five minutes of the class period, we would have to teach a demonstrative class that highlighted the use of this approach. For the demonstrative class, the members of the group would act as teachers, while the rest of our classmates acted like elementary school students.

 

     Since the process to create our project would be very time-consuming, our group decided to divide the work each member would do evenly. Our group was composed of four members, and we decided that two people would work on the first part of the presentation (where we would teach our classmates about the approach), and two people would work on the second part of the presentation (planning and creating the mini lesson for the demonstrative class). I was one of the two people who would be planning and creating the mini lesson for the second part of the presentation. This was decided because I speak English fluently, which was also the case for my partner. The other two members were not as confident in their ability to speak English fluently, so they decided to take charge of the first part of the presentation, since we all concluded that it was more important to speak English fluently during the demonstrative class.

 

     Unfortunately, the group member that I was supposed to prepare the demonstrative class with ended up dropping out of the course. Due to this, I planned and prepared the second part of the presentation alone. After carefully reading the textbook’s chapter on The Lexical Approach and conducting research using other sources, I prepared a mini-lesson plan that detailed what our demonstrative class would be like and created the slides in the second half of the PowerPoint presentation which we would use for it.

 

     For our demonstrative class I prepared a lesson to teach a group of fifth-grade students about collocations and how they can help us expand our vocabulary when learning a second language (in this case English). First, I created a few slides to define terms such as lexis, vocabulary, and collocations. Then, I created a game using the final slides of the PowerPoint presentation that would put the students’ newly acquired knowledge to the test. In simple terms, collocations are words that commonly appear next to each other in a specific language and, according to the lexical approach, learning about them helps second-language learners expand their vocabulary in the target language and, thus, become more fluent in it. I was inspired by the game show Family Feud when creating this game, which consisted of fifteen fill-in-the-blank exercises. A word would be displayed in the PowerPoint presentation, and the students would have to guess a word that commonly appears next to it in the English language. The class would be divided into two groups and each group would have to select a different member to represent them when it was time to answer each exercise. I would provide the students with a hat, and the first one to put on the hat would get to answer. If the first student answered correctly, they would win two points for their team, but if their answer was incorrect the other student would get a chance to answer as well. If the second student answered correctly, they would win one point for their team. However, if none of the students answered correctly, nobody would get points during that attempt. The students would be allowed to consult with their team if they were struggling to come up with answers.

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     On the day we would be presenting our project, we had to provide our classmates and the professor with a folder that included copies of the mini-lesson plan, a worksheet that would be filled out during the first part of the presentation, and a brochure or handout that summarized the most important aspects of the lexical approach. The worksheet and brochure were originally going to be created by the other group members, but, sadly, one of them had a family member pass away a few days before the project. Understandably, he could not contribute as much as he would have originally liked, so I decided to design a one-page handout that summarized the most important information and characteristics about the lexical approach. I would have liked to create a very colorful and creative brochure, but, unfortunately, technology is not my strong suit, and I did not have much time available to be able to figure out how to do that. Because of this, I chose to create the one-page handout, and did my best to make it look as beautiful as possible within the short period of time I had.

 

     Despite all the unexpected situations that occurred, our group managed to have everything ready to present on the day the project was due. One of the other members had printed all the necessary copies and beautifully decorated the folders they would be organized in. We handed these out to our classmates and professor and began with our presentation. The first part of the PowerPoint presentation was mostly presented by my partners, but I also read and explained two of the slides. I believe our classmates liked the first part of our presentation and understood what the lexical approach was because of it. When we concluded with this part, I began with the demonstrative class. I taught the material present on the slides to the students just as I had planned out in the mini-lesson plan and, when I was sure the students understood, I proceeded with the game. I conducted the game while the other group members kept the point scores for the two teams. To my surprise, our classmates became really invested in the game and seemed to enjoy playing the role of fifth-grade students. In fact, they became so competitive and interested in winning that it took them a long time to answer the game’s questions. Due to this, I had to implement a time-limit during the final questions to be able to conclude the game before the class period came to an end.

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     All in all, I believe our final product turned out very well in the end. The professor expressed to us that we did very good, which we were all very glad to hear. I had never heard about the lexical approach before I was assigned to work on this project, but I am very glad I got to conduct research and become familiar with the topic, as I realized I could implement the use of this approach in my future classroom. The process I followed in order to prepare the demonstrative class required much time and effort, but it paid off in the end. When working on the presentation, I got to learn a lot of new information that I previously did not know surrounding lexis, vocabulary, collocations, etc. This experience and knowledge I recently acquired is sure to help me out during my teaching career in the future because, if I was able to get my adult classmates to become thoroughly invested in a lesson intended for fifth-graders, then I will probably be able to inspire and motivate my future elementary school students to want to learn new things as well.