UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
Aslı Meryem LEVENT
07271016
LESSON PLAN
Subject: Uncountable nouns
Topic: Refreshments
Grade: 9th grade
Level: Intermediate
Duration: 40’+40’
Approach: Communicative Language Teaching
Skills: Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking
Techniques: Reading aloud, Questioning,
Repetition, Filling the blanks, Pair work, Peer
correction
Role of the students: Communicator, Performer,
Active participant, Negotiator
Role of the teacher: Organizer, Facilitator, Monitor,
Director
The nature of student-student and teacherstudent interaction: Students interact with both
the teacher and each other.
Expected errors: Misuse of uncountable nouns such
as using “a/an” or plural with uncountable nouns
Error Source: L1 (negative transference of the first
language pattern to the foreign language and
overgeneralization)
Type of Corrective Feedback: Recast
Materials: Reading dialogue, board, board marker,
worksheets, pictures
Why do I choose uncountable nouns?



One of the subjects students have difficulty in
understanding and they have mistakes
Confusion of classifier-type expressions in Turkish
The distinction in English between things treated as
uncountable
Why do I choose Communicative
Approach?





Communicative competence
Learner-centered approach
Social context and real-life situations
Students’ interests and needs
Classroom atmosphere
PRESENTATION
Warm-up and Motivation
The teacher comes to the classroom and greets
students as usual. She wants them to talk about that
what kinds of food and drinks they like and how
often they go shopping. After that, she shows some
pictures and asks them to say how much food and
drinks there are in Turkish. Thus, students perform a
brainstorming activity. Through this activity, the
teacher makes the students ready for the subject of
the lesson.
PRESENTATION
Warm-up and Motivation
Why do I use brainstorming?





Questioning technique and systematic practice
Improvement in learners’ inference ability
Visual aids
Useful for getting the students to predict what is
coming next in a lesson
Elicitation of the mistakes about classifiers
Why do I benefit from Schema Theory?




Necessity of the pre-existent knowledge of the world
Heavy emphasis on the importance of the learners’
background knowledge or cultural base
Association the knowledge with the new structure
Efficiency of communication through shared
schemata
PRESENTATION
Presenting the Instructional Objectives
The teacher reads a dialogue that has uncountable
nouns. The uncountable nouns are written in bold
and underlined.
PRESENTATION
Presenting the Instructional Objectives
Michael and Chris Taylor love being with friends. They often have parties at home. They are going to have
a party at home. They are making a shopping list now
Michael: Honey, do we have any drinks?
Chris: Well, we have a lot of lemonade and some apple juice; but there isn’t any coke.
Michael: Then, we are going to buy some coke. How much coke do we need?
Chris: Five cans/tins of coke.
Michael: OK, then I’m putting it on the shopping list. Do we need any vegetables?
Chris: Yes, I’m going to make a carrot salad; but there aren’t any carrots.
Michael: Not again! You always make carrot salad. Let’s make a Mediterranean salad this time.
Chris: All right. Oh! We don’t have enough parsley to make a Mediterranean salad.
Michael: No problem. I’m adding it to the list. Well, how much parsley do we have?
Chris: Just a moment. We have some; but, we need two bunches of parsley more. Oh! We don’t have much
oil, too. And we need a bottle of oil.
Michael: OK, I’m adding a bottle of oil and two bunches of parsley. You make delicious chocolate cakes.
Are going to make one?
Chris: Yes, I am. I need a bag of flour, two pockets of butter, three bars of chocolate, and a jar of
jam.
Michael: OK, I’m putting them on the list. And eggs?
Chris: Oh, I need some eggs, too.
Michael: How many eggs do you need?
Chris: Five
Michael: OK, then. Now, we are going shopping.
PRESENTATION
Presenting the Instructional Objectives
After that, she writes them with their translation equivalents on
the board.
English
Turkish
Five cans/tins of coke
beş (teneke) kutu kola
Two bunches of parsley
iki demet maydanoz
A bottle of oil
bir şişe zeytinyağı
A bag of flour
bir torba un
Two pockets of butter
iki paket yağ
Three bars of chocolate
üç kalıp çikolata
A jar of jam
bir kavanoz reçel
Then, she pronounces them and the students repeat after her.
Thus, the students start to be aware of uncountable nouns.
Why do I use reading material?



Comprehensible input
Communicative value and function as an active skill
Meaningful and social context because of integration
of the form and meaning
Why do I write the uncountable nouns in
bold and underlined at the presentation
stage?



Useful to draw learners’ attention to the features in
the target language.
Difference between countable and uncountable
nouns
Realization of classifier-type expressions with
uncountable nouns
Why do I write the uncountable nouns
with their equivalents on the board?



Decreasing the potential problems stemmed from the
first language through contrastive analysis
Grasping the similarities and differences between
uncountable nouns in Turkish and English
Helping the learners be aware of the classifier-type
expressions with uncountable nouns
PRACTICE

The First Activity
The teacher wants the students to fill the chart
according to the dialogue in order to make them
comprehend the text and aware of the expressions.
PRACTICE
Make the shopping list of Michael and Chris.
WHAT
e.g. coke
HOW MANY
parsley
-
-
HOW MUCH
five cans/tins
of coke
two bunches of
parsley
PRACTICE
• The Second Activity
After that, she wants the students to work with a
pair and she gives another text to each student in
pairs. She wants them to complete the text
according to pictures. Then, they exchange their
papers and check each other’s answers.
PRACTICE
Look and the picture and complete the
text.
My little son always has
a piece of (1) c_ _ _ _ _,
an (2) e_ _, some (3) h_ _ _ _ and a glass of
(4) m_ _ _ for breakfast. At lunchtime he usually has
a (5) h_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, an (6) a_ _ _ _ and
a
bottle of (7) a_ _ _ _. Sometimes he eats
a piece
of chocolate (8) c_ _ _ with
a can of (9) c_ _ _.
In the afternoon, he often eats
two (10) o_ _ _
_ _ _ and
a (11) b_ _ _ _ _. For dinner he
usually eats
a bowl of (12) s_ _ _ and
some grilled (13) s_ _ _ _ with
(14) r_ _ _.
Whenever he eats out, he prefers eating
(15)
d_ _ _ _ with
a bowl of (16) s_ _ _ _. He
usually drinks
a glass of (17) a_ _ _ _.
PRODUCTION
In the production part, the
teacher again wants them to
work with a pair and gives a
list to them. There are some
food and drinks in the list
and she gives a situation to
them. For example, she says
“You are going to have a
party this Saturday. Prepare
a shopping list for your party
using these items”.
Why do I use pair/group work?





Learner-centered approach
Allowing students to be in charge of their own
learning
Working and interacting independently without
necessary guidance of the teacher
Co-operation and negotiation
Promoting learner independency and autonomy
Why do I choose these activities
for the learners?
Helping the students communicate their needs and
thoughts
•
• Meaningful context in which the language is useful
• Presenting a variety of different linguistic forms
used in a real language
What kind of errors do I expect from my
learners and what can the causes of them
be?



Using “a/an” or plural with uncountable nouns such
as a butter, a chocolate, a good advice and
informations
The factor “overgeneralization” that the students
make while they are developing their interlanguages
Negative transference of the first language to the
target language e.g. adding “a/an” to the
uncountable nouns
What kind of errors do I expect from my
learners and what can the causes of them
be?




The difference between Turkish and English culture
Different shared knowledge of cultural reference and
discourse in their own language and culture from
English
Lack of linguistic relativity
A type of cognitive categorization based on
expression of quantity in English
How should I correct these errors?



Recast - implicit corrective feedback with repeating
what the students say correctly or reformulating the
sentence
According to the studies, learners notice and respond
to recasts in ways that contribute positively to their
language development.
Using at consistently high rate in management,
communication and content exchanges
Why do I adopt “Let’s talk” and
“Get it right in the end” proposals?




Comprehensible input and conversational interactions
with teacher and other students
The opportunity to negotiate for meaning
Working together to achieve a particular goal in
practice and production stages
Helping the students express their thoughts, opinions
and feelings in a free classroom environment
Why do I adopt “Let’s talk” and “Get it
right in the end” proposals?



The balance between meaning-based and formbased learning and teaching activities
Teaching some aspects of language explicitly
Suitable for the learners sharing the same L1
because of not leading any kind of communication
breakdown and difficulty in discovering errors on
their own
 THANK YOU 