Situation: One morning, you are teaching a class and a student suddenly asks you a grammar question. You know how to use
the language, but you don’t know how to explain it because you have never thought about it. The student requests that
you “Teach us” the topic on the piece of paper you have received. You tell the student you will get back to them the
next day. You then put together a very focused mini-lesson, complete with 1) an original explanation or demonstration of
the topic, 2) a short, original exercise for the students to practice on, and 3) a brief, original assessment plan to
see how well they have learned the topic.
Teach us the different basic word orders (for American English) in statements vs. questions including auxiliary verb
placement and any obvious exceptions.
Create a 10- to 15-minute mini-lesson for the class. About 1/3 of the class will actually present this to the rest of
us in the class. You will have to put together an age-appropriate (your choice of age) PowerPoint to explain it. Your
PowerPoint will need to include the explanatory slides, an exercise and an explanation of your assessment plan.
Presenters will present their material, the exercise and the assessment to the rest of us as if you were presenting them
to your actual students, but, due to time constraints, we won’t actually do the exercises and assessment during class.