Lesson Plan for Teachers
Review course lesson 2
The aim of this lesson is to get students writing a review for a place on Google maps. Reviews of places are often short and informal, so writing a place review is an unthreatening first step to writing public texts.
Task 1 Warmer
Purpose: To activate and share knowledge of places and travel.
Background: Before writing a review of place students are familiar with, this task aims to prompt students to think about places they have been to.
Procedure:
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Write ‘has been to Singapore’ on the board. Tell students you are looking for someone who can say ‘yes’ to this question. Elicit the full question form for asking someone: ‘Have you ever been to Singapore?’. The aim of the game is to find someone who says ‘yes’ to the question. Add ‘when?’ and elicit the form for asking the past simple follow up question.
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Hand out the ‘Find someone who…’. Let students read through the questions and add three of their own.
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Students mill and ask, writing the name of a person who says yes. They should ask the appropriate follow up question. To ensure students move and ask others, impose a rule that they cannot ask the same person more than two (depending on the number of students) questions.
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If the task goes quickly, switch partners.
Feedback: To close the task, ask students how many interesting facts they found out about their classmates.
Material: Task 1 handout
Timing: 15+ minutes
Task 2: Survey on Google Maps
Purpose: This task aims to review students’ use of Google Maps.
Background: Google Maps offers an option for reviews of places, but has many other functions and uses. This activity surveys students’ knowledge and familiarity with these.
Procedure:
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Ask students how often they use Google Maps. Elicit what they use it for. Make a list of the various functions and ask students if they use them all.
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Put students in pairs or small groups. Hand out the task sheet and allow students to answer the questions using their phones or computers as necessary.
Feedback: Focus attention on question 5 as a segue to the next task.
Material: Task 2 handout
Timing: 15+ minutes
Task 3: Reading place reviews
Purpose: This task practices using the review function on Google maps.
Background: Reviews are live, and therefore constantly changing. Users can filter the reviews in various ways. Readers of reviews may also have expectation as to what might be included in a review.
Procedure:
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Students work in small groups.
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Hand out task sheet 3. Students read the reviews and try to guess what the place is being reviewed.
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For feedback, ask students how they were able to identify the place. Focus students’ attention on the adjectives (‘peaceful’, ‘noisy’) and verbs (‘walk’) which are common in reviews like this. Ask student for other keywords that identify the place, activity, or feelings of the author.
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On the board, write the following names of parks, and ask the students to find them and compare them. Which has the highest rating? What can you do there? What things do people complain about in each park? Which would they (not) like to visit?
- Vondelpark (Amsterdam)
- Hofgarten (Munich)
- Petersham Park (Sydney)
- Wat Botum Park (Phnom Penh)
- Izmailovsky Park (Moscow)
- Rhodes Park (Johannesburg)
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(Optional) Students each give a park (or other place) to their group to find out about by looking in Google maps (rating, number of reviews etc)
Feedback: Get students to share their findings with the class.
Material: Task 3 handout
Timing: 20 minutes.
Task 4: Identifying the content of place reviews
Purpose: This task focuses on the content of place reviews.
Background information: Reviewers in Google write about a variety of different things, perhaps depending on the kind of location, but more importantly what might be useful for a reader to know about. Examples might include where to park, secret lookouts and so on. In this task student identify the content of google reviews.
Activity stages:
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Students brainstorm what content reviewers may include (their answers can be based on the reviews of the parks in task 3) and organize it into categories (for example, recommendations).
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In small groups, students read three reviews (see handout) and answer the questions.
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Students guess what is being reviewed in Task 4 handout, and then find a similar review to share with their group.
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Feedback: Ask what content students identified for each of the five categories. What additional categories did they find? Ask other general questions about the content of reviews: what makes a review ‘useful’ to a reader? How long a ‘useful’ review is? Are longer reviews more ‘useful’ than shorter ones? Is grammar and accuracy important?
Material: Task 4 handout
Timing: 20 minutes
Task 5: Write a place review
Purpose: Students write a short (approximately 50 words) review of a place and post it to Google Maps.
Background information: Writing reviews is fun and non-threatening. In general, readers of reviews are uncritical of accuracy and form, so students need focus only on generating meaning in their reviews. Posting a review publicly, however, requires students to take some care with their writing, as their audience is not only the teacher (as it might be in some language courses)
Activity stages:
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Individually, students think of a place they know well.
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In a word processor program, they draft their review of the place, including any information that might be relevant for a reader interested in going to that place. If needed, a sample review of a local place written by the teacher can be shared with the students (see task sheet 5)
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In pairs or small groups, students read one another’s reviews and give any feedback on content, organization, or meaning.
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Each student posts their review to Google.
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Students each send a screenshot of the post to the teacher and write a short reflection on their experience with writing and posting a live review.
Material: Task 5 handout (if necessary)
Timing: 20 minutes