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Skillswise lesson plan
   
   
Many thanks to tutor Karen Bilous from the National Open College Network who sent this plan into us.

Spelling and its history
Session:  Week No: 
Date:  Time:  40 minutes
Curriculum reference/s:  SLlr/L1.5,  SLlr/E3.6,  Rt/E3.8,  SLd/E3.1,  SLd/E3.2,  SLd/E3.3

Objectives: 
This lesson aims to:
- introduce course aims and objectives
- ascertain students' perceptions about spelling
- link spelling to the history of the English language.

Its SMART learning outcomes are:
- discuss attitudes to spelling thus dispelling some myths
- identify personal spelling problems
- develop an awareness of the origins of the English language.


Time
Topic
Teacher activity
Learner activity
Materials
0:00 - 0:05
 		 Introduction
 		 Introduce course aims and objectives
 		 Read through and respond
 		 Handout - aims and objectives
 
0:05 - 0:15
 		 Discussion
 		 Discuss opinions about spelling
 		 Complete handout
 		 Handout 2 - what do you think about spelling?
 
0:15 - 0:20
 		 Assessing students' spelling problems
 		 Checklist of common spelling problems (these will be covered in the course)
 		 Tick each statement if it applies to them.
 		 Checklist of spelling problems
 
0:20 - 0:30
 		 History of spelling
 		 Link spelling into history - English can be difficult to spell, not to do with intelligence but because of varied roots and other quite mundane reasons (see handout)
 		 Listen and respond appropriately
 		 Handout - the history of spelling
 
0:30 - 0:40
 		 Old and new spellings
 		 Look at Chaucer handout. Give out vocabulary handout. Note the similarities and differences with today's spellings - logic? Discuss links to awkward spellings of today - hir - their, etc.
 		 Read and discuss.
Pick out familiar words and discuss past and present spellings of the words.
 		 Handout - The Knight's Tale
 

Lesson evaluation: 
 
 
 
 
 

Additional notes: 
The handouts for this lesson plan are currently not available off the Skillswise site. Any tutor wishing to use this lesson plan should create their own handouts.
 
You can find Skillswise at http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise
This lesson plan is BBC Copyright