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Lesson Plan for Teachers

 Review course lesson 4 

​This lesson aims to introduce written reviews of movies and tools to analyse the language used by reviewers.  

Task 1 Using Ngram

Purpose: 1. To introduce movie reviews as a genre. 

                2. To practice using the Google Ngram viewer 

Background: In this lesson students will be introduced to online programs that focus on language analysis. The Ngram viewer is a useful and relatively simple tool to help students make language choices when writing. 

Procedure: 

  • Introduce movie reviews. Show (on a screen) the class a review of a current movie/series (to be used as the example throughout the lesson), for example these reviews of ‘Star Wars’: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8111088/reviews?ref_=tt_urv 

  • Pick a structure error at random from the review and ask students to identify what is wrong and how to correct it. For example this one from a review of the Clone Wars ‘My last words is this:…’. Perhaps highlight to students that many reviews are not perfectly written and that mistakes are tolerated. Let them identify any other language errors in one of the reviews. 

  • Elicit students’ response to a more ambiguous language issue: e.g ‘colour’ vs ‘color’. 

  • Open the google Ngram viewer https://books.google.com/ngrams 

  • Guide students through its use and how to read the output. Highlight the option to search specifically for US and UK English. 

  • In pairs, students work though the questions in Task 1 using the Google Ngram viewer. Allow time for students to experiment with the tool to explore language questions not on the task sheet. 

Feedback: Ask students if there were any interesting findings from the task sheet. Ask if any pairs searched for other language issues.  

Material: Lesson 4 Task 1 handout 

Timing: 30 minutes 

Task 2: Parts of speech

Purpose: To identify parts of speech with the help of an online tool.  

Background: Some students have problems identifying parts of speech in a sentence, especially for words that change PoS depending on their position (eg. ‘measure’). Tools are available online to help students with this. 

Procedure:  

Feedback:  

  • Identify how students categorized the adjectives into groups. Remind students of connotation and sentiment (from the previous lesson). Deal with any questions or problems. 

  • Ask students for any problems they had using the tool.  

  • This task focused particularly on adjectives, but in the feedback session, the teacher can show its effectiveness is dealing with other problems focusing on PoS (e.g. ‘He measures the surface of the table’ and ‘The government has tabled measures to solve the problem’). 

Material: Lesson 4 Task 2 handout 

Timing: 15 minutes 

Task 3: Online dictionaries

Purpose: To practice using a monolingual online dictionary. 

Background information: Online translation is common with students (particularly Google translate), which is very useful but sometimes limited. In this task, students use a monolingual dictionary online to find possible uses for their own writing.  

Activity stages: 

Feedback: Ask students how useful the tool is, and what interesting findings they have from their analysis. 

Material: Lesson 4 Task 3 handout 

Timing: 15 minutes 

Task 4: Words and Phrases

Purpose: This tool gives students access to a concordance of authentic language in use.  

Background information: In this task, students practice using Words and Phrases using the same text as in Task 2 in preparation for analysing a text of their own choice. This task is designed as a review and assumes that students have already used the tool in (a) previous course(s). If students are unfamiliar with the tool, an overview of its functions and output will ne necessary. 

Procedure:  

  • Students work in pairs or small groups and use the same review from task 2. 

  • Give students Task 3 handout. Students open the Words and Phrases website to start answering the questions (https://www.wordandphrase.info/analyzeText.asp) 

  • Monitor and help students as necessary with the task. 

Feedback: The questions in this task are based specifically on the review from the Clone Wars. Other language questions may emerge from other texts, and students may be curious about words other than those identified in the task sheet. Elicit from students any problems they had with the tool, and interesting findings from their analysis.  

Material: Lesson 4 Task 4 handout 

Timing: 40 minutes. 

Task 5: Analysis of a movie review

Purpose: Students use the variety of tools to analyse the language in a movie review of their choice. 

Background information: For movies that students are already familiar with, reviews will be easier to read and highly enjoyable.  

Procedure:  

  • Students work alone or in pairs. Give them Task sheet 5 and allow them time to find a review of a movie they know or like. Students work through the language in the review and use the various tools introduced in the lesson to analyse the language. 

  • All students to share their findings with a partner or another group. If possible, allow students with similar movies (or similar movie genres) to share, to increase interest. 

Feedback: There may a limit to how much feedback can be given in plenary given the variety of movies students may choose. Feedback can be elicited on how useful the tools are for helping understand (any) texts.  

Material: Lesson 4 Task 5 handout 

Timing: 40 minutes 

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