ELTAC Unit 3: Activity Plan for Teaching English (B1 Level)

This assignment presents an activity plan designed for an 8-10 year old group of learners at the B1 level of English proficiency, as per the CEFR framework. The activity focuses on enhancing spoken English skills, specifically politeness in speech, through role-playing. The plan includes two scenarios: one in a park setting, and another in a library, each designed to highlight the appropriate use of polite language in different situations. The assignment details the learning objectives, activity description, analysis of the activity's authenticity and communicative competence, and addresses the limitations. Teacher's notes are also provided to guide implementation, along with references to relevant academic sources. The activity emphasizes real-life scenarios and interpersonal communication, aligning with the CEFR's goals for spoken interaction and production at the B1 level. The plan also considers the use of native English speakers for volunteer roles to integrate authentic language elements.

Running head: ELTAC UNIT 3
ELTAC UNIT 3
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ELTAC UNIT 3
Activity plan
Age group: 8-10
Grade level: 3
CEFR Level: B1
Learning focus: Speaking
Subcomponents: Spoken interaction, Spoken Production
Deep topic focus: Politeness in speech
Objective of the activity plan: The learners in the focus group belongs to grade level 3 (age
group 8 – 10). Their CEFR level is B1. According to the CEFR common assessment level
self-assessment grid, the objectives for B1 level Spoken is:
 Interaction – the learner is able to deal effectively with a situation that involves
conversation while travelling in a place where the language is spoken. The learner can
also enter into a conversation on topics of familiarity and interest or topics related to
everyday life.
 Spoken – the learner can join simple phrases to describe experiences or events, as
well as dreams, hopes and ambitions. The learner can also justify their opinions and
plans, narrate a story or relate a plot while also describing his/her reactions.
Activity Description
Background: In this activity, the spoken aspect of the learners is given the primary
highlight. It is a group based activity where all learners are involved in a role play game to
enhance their spoken English skills (Hamid, Zhu & Baldauf, 2014). In order to account for
the inclusion of native English elements, a few native English speakers can be used to
volunteer for the task.

2ELTAC UNIT 3
This task involves a series of everyday scenarios, therefore a variety of resources from
daily life will be used. The primary resources required for this activity includes any kind of
gadgets of daily use (laptop, mobile phones etc). Other resources are also very situation
specific therefore the freedom to use resources will lie with the teacher.
The students will be assigned to groups of three (minimum) to five (maximum). Each
group will have an additional native English speaker as a sixth member. If there are not
enough native English volunteers, the existing volunteers can take turns doing this activity in
groups.
Situations:
1. The first situation is a park where a few people are practicing yoga and some minor
exercises when a person standing near them (volunteer) starts speaking very loudly in
his phone. This disturbs the group and after a while, the group confronts the person
and one person asks him to stop talking on his phone in a very rude manner. This
angers the person and they start to get into an argument when another person from the
group intervenes and restores peace by explaining that because of the loud speaking,
they were feeling a bit disturbed. This way the situation is managed.
Points to remember: this scenario highlights an important aspect of speech –
politeness (Schourup, 2016). This activity will focus on specific use of words like
please, kindly etc., that denote politeness in speech.
2. The second scenario is one where an informal discussion is taking place between a
group of students in a library. The people are talking amongst themselves (a random
topic for discussion will be provided but without and any script) are unaware that
they are violating the library rules of silence. The librarian (volunteer) comes and
confronts them regarding their actions. The students realise their actions and
apologise for their actions.

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Points to remember: here, another significant aspect of polite speech is indicated –
polite reciprocation (Linguistic Politeness Research group, 2011). This would focus
on specific words and phrases like ‘I’m Sorry’, ‘please forgive us’, etc.
Analysis of activity
This activity is authentic because it is a curated activity that is designed to prepare the
learners to encounter any challenges or situations that they will experience in real life.
Authentic activities are described as “tasks identical or similar to those that children will
eventually encounter in the outside world” (Ormrod, Anderman & Anderman, 2008, p. 343).
This activity is designed with a possible real life situation in mind, as these are the situations
that can be encountered by people in daily life. Therefore, these activities form the base of a
spoken activity where real life elements are the focus.
Secondly, this activity engages the learners in a task that requires interpersonal
communication while at the same time focusing on the development of their grammatical
skills in speech. Therefore, this activity helps in the development of the learners’
communicative competence (Savignon, 2018). We see that according to the CEFR, learners
at B1 level of proficiency have specific goals when it comes to the spoken aspect (Council for
Cultural Co-operation. Modern Languages Division., 2010). These goals include being able
to engage in conversation in real life when a situation that is not pre scripted or pre mediated
happens. Therefore, this task meets the requirements of the learners by simply providing
scaffolding on which keywords to use in each scenario instead of instantiating the entire
sentence.
One key limitation of this activity is that since it is designed for grade 3 learners, it
cannot be made too lengthy, because of which, the activity has removed certain other
elements of speech production like the focus on intonation and how a rising or a falling tone

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can be useful in a conversational situation (McKay, 2012) where questioning or response is
an inevitable requirement.
Teacher’s notes
1. Identify that the learners are at the same level by using a simple warm-up speech
activity.
2. Make sure that the volunteers do not include complex words while having a
conversation.
3. During the role play, let the actor cool down before moving into another activity.
4.

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References
Council for Cultural Co-operation. Modern Languages Division. (2010). Common European
framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge
University Press.
Hamid, M. O., Zhu, L., & Baldauf Jr, R. B. (2014). Norms and Varieties of English and
TESOL Teacher Agency. Australian journal of teacher education, 39(10), n10.
Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Ed.). (2011). Discursive approaches to
politeness (Vol. 8). Walter de Gruyter.
McKay, S. L. (2012). Principles of Teaching English as an International Language: Sandra
Lee McKay. In Principles and practices for teaching English as an international
language (pp. 36-54). Routledge.
Ormrod, J. E., Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2008). Educational psychology:
Developing learners.
Savignon, S. J. (2018). Communicative competence. The TESOL encyclopedia of English
language teaching, 1-7.
Schourup, L. C. (2016). Common discourse particles in English conversation. Routledge.s

6ELTAC UNIT 3
Appendix
For task 1, here are the possible outcomes in speech:
 Hey, can you turn off that damned phone and walk away?
 What did you say right now? Is this the way you speak to other people?
 You have been talking so loudly on the phone, what else should I have done?
 You could have asked politely.
 I’m sorry on his behalf, its just we were practicing exercises with our instructor and
you speaking very loudly was causing a little disturbance.
 I see.
 What we’re about to ask you is whether or not you will be okay talking a bit slowly?
 Sure, I will keep that in mind, thank you very much.
For task 2,
 Children, why are you making so much noise? Do you not know that it’s a library?
 We are sorry, we were just discussing about (a topic) and we didn’t realise it was this
loud.
 Well, it is. Can you please talk hushed? If you can’t then I am afraid I will have to
ask you to leave.
 We apologise ma’am. Please let us stay for a while more. We have some research
that we want to read up on. Thank you very much.