"Running on Faith"

Objectives:

Duration:

    4 hours

Materials:

Activities:       

1. Teacher tells learners that they will listen to "Running on Faith," by English musician Eric Clapton to help teach the present perfect continuous tense. Learners also will review the future continuous and the past continuous tenses in this lesson.

2. Teacher selects a student to define a "continuous" tense as a review ( action that goes on and on for a period of time in the past, present or future). Teacher introduces the present perfect continuous tense by writing the term on the board with an example. Teacher writes an example of the past continuous tense on the board and compares the structures of the two tenses (past continuous refers to action that goes on and on in the past and begins and ends in the past; present perfect continuous goes on and on, but begins in the past and continues into the present). Teacher writes two or three more examples on the board (ie: "I was washing my clothes yesterday," and "I have been washing my clothes all day," etc.). 

3. Teacher allows for independent practice by writing a list of verbs on the board next to a list of proper nouns and personal pronouns. Learners mix and match any three pairs, writing three sentences in each tense (past continuous and present perfect continuous). Sentences can be as long or short as they like, but learners are encouraged to make the sentences as long as they can. Learners then share their list with a partner assigned by the teacher, who reads and helps correct any mistakes. Teacher provides assistance where necessary. Learners then share their sentences with the class. 

4. Teacher defines "Running on Faith" vocabulary: "poor" (as in "sympathetic"), "faith," "imagine" and "dream" (most intermediate students will already know these words), then plays the song. Teacher asks learners to guess what the song is about (a love song).

5. Teacher distributes sentence strips, giving two lines to each learner. Teacher plays song a second time while class works together to put strips in their proper sequence. Teacher distributes p. 1 of "Running on Faith" lyrics and learners fill in the blanks using the sentence strips as an aide. Learners underline the passages that are in the present perfect continuous tense.

6. Teacher distributes p.2 of the lyrics for students to check their answers. Teacher plays the song one more time while learners sing along. 

7. Teacher breaks class into two groups: one group completes Review of the Present Perfect Continuous Tense worksheet individually, then compares answers with a partner; learners then take turns reading their answers aloud. Learners in second group work individually on computer to complete the Verb Tense Tutorial; learners print out their answers and compare. Groups exchange stations after 20-25 minutes. 

Assessment:

Teacher monitors verbal and written responses of individual learners, evaluates all written work and the online tutorial.