Alternative Tasks Units

Generic Skills

• 
  Communication skills
  
• 
  Collaboration skills
  
• 
  Critical thinking skills
  
• 
  Creativity
  
• 
  Problem-solving skills
  

Students are able to:

• 
  read and comprehend the story and know the characters
  
• 
  draw upon their knowledge about working dogs and the functions they perform
  
• 
  make reference to their past experience about fund-raising activities and suggest which one to adopt if their school is to organize one
  
• 
  make a decision based on the information given and substantiate one’s views with supporting reasons
  
• 
  reckon animals as great helpers to human mankind by telling the different functions they perform
  
• 
  find the right animals for the potential pet owners after taken into consideration the given factors
  

Language Function & Structure:

• 
  Use of the pattern with the and a comparative to say that a change in one thing goes with a change in another.
  
• 
  Use of “I think … / I suggest … / My opinion is …” to state the preference/decision and use of “because” to provide the reasons.
  
• 
  Use of “Our decision is …” to state the conclusion drawn.
  
• 
  Use of idiomatic expressions containing animals (e.g. eat like a horse, raining cats and dogs) for description of situations
  

Reading

• 
  Students read to extract the relevant information from the story.
  
• 
  Students relate what they read with their prior knowledge about the world.
  
• 
  Students are able to read beyond the lines and give response to a reading text.
  

Materials

• 
  Story book
  
• 
  Worksheets 1 to 6
  

For Worksheet 3 and Worksheet 6, students have to work in groups – the former to decide who should get the guide dog and the latter to discuss what animals to choose for some potential pet owners. Teachers are advised to put students of mixed abilities in a group and try out the strategy of Cooperative Learning. Since students have different roles to play in cooperative groups like recorder, reporter, time-keeper, checker, noise monitor, etc., this ensures all students to be on task and they can perform according to their abilities.

James McCarthy was accused of having murdered his own father, Charles McCharthy. On the afternoon of the tragedy, he was seen having a violent quarrel with the latter near Boscombe Pool, and shortly after that he rushed to a house nearby for help, with blood on his hand, saying he found his father dead by the Pool. James refused to say anything about the object of his quarrel with his father, but told the coroner that before his father died, the latter uttered something about “a rat”.

• 
  to participate with others in planning, organizing and carrying out events (IDd)
  
• 
  to provide or find out, select, organize and present information on familiar and less familiar topics (KDa)
  
• 
  to interpret and use more extensive information through processes or activities such as sequencing, describing, explaining, predicting, inferring, summarizing, drawing conclusions (KDc)
  
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  to identify and discuss ideas in spoken and written texts, form opinions and express them (KDd)
  
• 
  to identify and define problems from given information, consider related factors, solve the problems and explain the solutions (KDe)
  
• 
  to respond to characters, events and issues in imaginative and other narrative texts (EDb)
  

• 
  Collaboration skills
  
• 
  Communication skills
  
• 
  Creativity
  
• 
  Critical thinking skills
  
• 
  Information technology skills
  
• 
  Problem-solving skills
  
• 
  Study skills
  
• 
  Cultural interest and appreciation of a famous foreign fictitious figure
  

Students are able:

1. 
   to follow the plot of a detective story
   
2. 
   to recognize the clues to the mystery in the story and suggest solutions to the mystery with justification
   
3. 
   to appreciate the portrayal of characters and description of actions and events in a story
   
4. 
   to investigate the fictitious world of Sherlock Holmes and/or other detective and mystery stories and to organize and present the findings
   
5. 
   to understand the genre of detective stories and to develop an interest in detective fiction
   

Language Function & Structure:

• 
  Use of conditional tenses, esp. types 2 & 3
  
• 
  Use of present perfect tense to describe the completion of some actions (e.g. the picture has been replaced; the vase has been broken)
  
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  Use of “so” etc. to avoid repetition.
  
• 
  Use of “both” for emphasis.
  

• 
  Listening: listening to group members’ view and classmates and teachers’ reading aloud, to comprehend and to interpret the reading
  
• 
  Speaking: expressing personal views and speculations, discussion, reasoning and justifying own points of view, reading aloud the story.
  
• 
  Reading: anticipation, reading for underlying meaning, reading to extract clues for the mystery of the story
  
• 
  Reading & writing: reading to follow sequence of events and to summarize part of the story, writing a statement of confession for a character in the story.
  
• 
  Word attack skills.
  

The Boscombe Valley Mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (adapted)

Teachers may adapt the materials and the teaching procedure judiciously for the needs of the students

4-8

Description

Students read an excerpt of There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom (Chapters 6 and 7). They do a reading comprehension and vocabulary exercises. Then they focus on language about giving directions. After that they do some activities about going to a new school and friendship. Students are encouraged to finish the story on their own.

The Story

Bradley Chalkers is a troublemaker and a bully in his school. Jeff Fishkin is a newcomer, and he tries to make friends with Bradley. With Miss Carla Davis, the new counselor’s help, Bradley begins to change into a good and popular boy.

• 
  Collaboration skills
  
• 
  Creativity
  
• 
  Communication skills
  

Objectives

Student are able

1. 
   To understand the text and vocabulary of the excerpt.
   
2. 
   To practise the language about giving directions.
   
3. 
   To practise using the structure: by + present participle.
   
4. 
   To practise speaking and writing in imaginary situations.
   

1. 
   Reading a text – whole-class work
   
2. 
   Understanding the text and vocabulary – whole-class work
   
3. 
   Language focus – whole-class work
   
4. 
   Drawing a poster – pair work, group work
   
5. 
   Prediction –group work
   
6. 
   Writing an entry in diary – individual work
   
7. 
   Role play – pair work
   
8. 
   Project – group work
   
9. 
   Book mark competition – individual work
   

Materials

• 
  Excerpt from the story There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom
  
• 
  Reading comprehension exercise
  
• 
  Vocabulary exercise
  
• 
  Worksheet on giving directions
  
• 
  Worksheet on sentence structure: by + present participle
  
• 
  Suggested additional activities
  

Catering for Learner Diversity

The two units can be done together with more capable students, or separately with weaker students. If they are done separately, relevant post-reading activities can be done after each unit.

For weaker students, the teacher can provide more examples in the following before students attempt the tasks given:

• 
  reading comprehension
  
• 
  vocabulary
  
• 
  grammar focus
  
• 
  writing
  
• 
  speaking
  
• 
  For pair work and group discussions, more able students can be put together with weaker ones so they can help the latter complete the tasks more easily.
  

More capable students can also be encouraged to read the whole story afterwards.

Suggested Number of Lessons

10

The story came from a Rocky Mountain legend. Ten-year old Little Willy lived on a potato farm in Wyoming with his grandfather and his dog Searchlight. He was faced with a big problem when his grandfather fell ill, that was to get five hundred dollars in a hurry to save their farm from the tax collector. Willy decided to enter the National Dogsled Race for the prize money. But he had to compete against Stone Fox, an Indian who had five beautiful Samoyeds and had never lost a race. Stone Fox also needed the prize money badly. The story had an exciting, tragic but moving ending.

(KDa) to find out information about characters and the setting of the story.

(KDb) to interpret and use more extensive information through processes or activities such as describing, comparing, explaining, predicting, inferring, and summarizing.

(KDd) to solve problems and explain the solutions.

((EDb) to respond to characters, events and issues in the story through oral, written and performative means such as making predictions and inferences, making evaluative comments, explaining one’s feelings towards characters, and participating in dramatic presentations.

(EDc) to give expression to one’s feeling towards characters through creative writing, e.g. poem, diary, extended story.

(IDb) to converse and exchange points of view about feelings and ideas.

• 
  Communication skills
  
• 
  Collaboration skills
  
• 
  Creativity
  
• 
  Critical thinking skills
  
• 
  Problem-solving skills
  
• 
  Learners develop cultural interest and appreciation through being exposed to story in a foreign setting and culture.
  
• 
  Learners develop an awareness of the potential influences of language use on other people’s feelings and direction of thinking,
  

1. 
   to appreciate the way characters are portrayed in a story
   
2. 
   to understand the importance of a story’s setting in making the story authentic and in creating the mood and atmosphere for the story.
   
3. 
   to understand and suggest solutions to a problem and to evaluate different solutions to a problem.
   
4. 
   To predict the development of the story and to make guesses for unknown causes.
   
5. 
   to substantiate one’s views with supporting reasons
   
6. 
   to write creatively in the form of diary, acrostic poem and extended story
   

1. 
   Use of adjectives and descriptive expressions to describe a character
   

“He was big and strong ….His eyes sparkled in the sunlight.”

“Stone Fox is probably as strong and stubborn as a stone.”

2. 
   Use of noun phrases or gerunds after “I can see …” and “I can hear ….” to describe a scene.
   

“I can hear the squeak of the fresh powder when Willy walked on the snow.”

3. 
   Use adjectives and formulaic expressions to express states of mind /affairs which cause illness..
   

“He was troubled by some money problems.”

“He was too old to move.”

1. 
   Listening : listening to group members’ views and teachers’ reading aloud, to comprehend and to interpret
   
2. 
   Speaking: discussion, reporting, reading aloud
   
3. 
   Writing: jotting down ideas in charts, tables, word spiders, setting map etc, writing diary, poetry writing and extended story writing
   
4. 
   Reading: reading for gist and for underlying meaning
   

1. 
   Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner .
   
2. 
   Worksheets 1 to 9
   
3. 
   Background information about the author, the book, the setting of the story and teaching ideas can be downloaded from the web.
   

Quite a number of the activities suggested have two versions, one less demanding and the other more demanding. Teachers should also feel free to adapt the materials judiciously for the needs of the students.

12-14