1st LESSON PLAN – Time

Created by Ivan Fremec and Mirna Prusina

UNIT: TIME

SUBUNIT: Prepositions of time

Age group 13-14 years old

Time: 90 minutes (two periods)

Resources/Materials: PowerPoint presentation computers (with Python) beamer Android smartphones with

QPython app paper sheets with instructions

New grammar: prepositions of time (in, at, on)

Learning outcomes:

Pupils should be able to:

1. use the correct preposition of time in an English sentence

2. tell precise time in English

3. comprehend basic classroom language

4. follow the teacher’s instructions

5. create an Android app which can be used for teaching prepositions of time in English in a fun and interactive way

Time Procedure

2’

2’

5’

4’

5’

IntroductionThe teacher tells the pupils that today’s class will be divided into two parts. In the first part they will be learning about the prepositions of time in English and in the second one they will be applying their knowledge by creating Android apps for young learners of English and to help our Erasmus+ guests in another project.

MotivationThe teacher shows the pupils pictures of clocks and tells them to say whatever comes to their mind when seeing this. The students give answers (clocks, numbers, calendars, date, time...).

Main partThe teacher gives the theoretical language overview using PowerPoint on how to tell precise time in English and when to use the expressions past, quarter past, half past, to, and quarter to.

After the first theoretical part on how to tell precise time in English, the students are given an exercise. They have to write the exact time that each of the clocks on the PowerPoint presentation is showing. They are given two minutes of time for this exercise, and then we check it in a way that the volunteers come to the teacher’s computer and write the correct times.

After that, the teacher explains the prepositions of time to students using the PowerPoint presentation. For example, at is used when talking about specific time, on is used when talking about dates, days of the week, and special days, and in is used when talking about

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Whole classIndividual work

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In pairs

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4’

5’

5’

45’

8’

years, parts of the day, months, and seasons.

Students are then given an exercise in which they have to choose the correct preposition. They are given one minute to look at the sentences in the PowerPoint presentation and fill in the blanks. We check the answers in a way that the volunteers come to the teacher’s computer and fill in the blanks.

Then follows the main part of the lesson: programming. The main part of the lesson consists of programming in Python programming language in four teams, each with a specific task regarding time. The teacher divides students into four teams, each with one team leader. He assigns each team one task regarding the usage of prepositions of time and telling the precise time. The teacher instructs pupils to install QPython app, which allows for the code to be read and executed on Android smartphones, and which can be found on Google Play.

The teacher explains the tasks.

The name of the first task is “Hard time with prepositions of time”. The team has to write a program which will, using the loop with logic conditional and employing functions if and elif, put preposition in in front of the names of months and seasons, preposition on in front of the names of the days of the week, and preposition at if you enter time using numbers in decimal notation.

The name of the second task was “Help them to tell time”. The team has to write a program which will, using the loop with logic conditional (while) and function if, help the young learners of English to tell time. The time has to be entered in the form x.xx, which means two decimal places with numbers from 0 – 60 that represent minutes.

The name of the third task was “Solving the time zones issues”. The team has to write a program which will, using functions gmtime and strftime, extract only hours, minutes, and seconds from time. Then, they had to define a function which will give the exact time in each of the countries participating in D.E.A.R. project, according to their time zone.

The name of the fourth task is “When to work and when to party”. The team has to write a program which will help the students and teachers from another Erasmus+ project who are visiting our school next month to know when are classes in progress, and when are breaks, in a way that if they enter time in the decimal form, the program tells them that.

The teacher gives the instructions and the programming starts. If the students have some difficulties, the IT teacher is always ready to jump in.

After the groups finish coding, they present their work to the rest of the class and copy the code on the QPython webpage to see if the code works on Android phones. The page translates the code into QR code, which is then scanned by the camera on the smartphone and can be executed on any Android phone. When the students finish their

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In groups

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In groups

apps, they are instructed to go to Google Play and to download MIT Companion to their Android phones. Then, they create QR codes for their apps and scan them with phone cameras, which starts the apps on their smartphones.

Individual work

5’ Evaluation:KahootAt the end of the lesson, the students play a quiz on Kahoot. The quiz contains questions from the language part of the lesson, as well as some questions about the functions the students used during the programming. The students log in with the password given by the IT teacher and in the end we declare a winner.

Individual work