GRADE LEVEL: B2 - Year 12 Students 

AGE OF STUDENTS: 16-18 year old students 

CLASS: English SUBJECT AREA: British/ American Studies 

FOCUS/TOPIC: American Anglish vs British English Lexical differ

ences 

MATERIALS  NEEDED:  Computers/  Students  BYOD,  Internet  access,vide

o  projector,  Notebooks,

Pencils, 

SETTING: Classroom with internet access 

STUDENT BACKGROUND: Albanian 

KEY WORDS: American English, British English, Words, lexis,

 differences, meanings

 OBJECTIVES: BY THE END OF THE LESSON : 

1. Year 12 students will identify more than 60% of the differ

ences in meaning 

2.Year  12  students  will  write  their  own  mini-American/British  Stor

y  using  a  minimum  of  6  words

that differ in both varieties

3.Year 12 students will describe what the misunderstanding was abo

ut with 80% accuracy

4.Year 12 students will paraphrase the story within 4 minutes

First things  first, the  objectives.  The  first  thing  I'm

  going  to  start the  lesson  with  (after  introducing

myself and doing some small talk) are the objectives for I

believe that a student/pupil needs to know

what he is expected to do before he actually does it.

Secondly, students will listen to and read a short story (bet

ween a British and American person who

do  not  seem  to  understand  each  other)  displayed  on  the  ov

erhead  projectors  and  are  asked  about

where they think the conversation is going.

Then, the conversation is resumed and paused again. Studen

ts are asked to check whether they were

right  or  wrong  and  then  proceed  with  the  same  step  once  mo

re.  At  the  end,  the  full  dialogue  will

appear on screen with the differing lexical items being hi

ghlighted. Students will be asked about their

meanings.  The  words  in  bold  will  be  individualised  from  the  t

ext  and  portrayed  on  another  screen

where they will have their meanings spoken aloud by the computer

( British or American accent).

Finally,  upon  understanding  and  being  shown  the  differences,  s

tudents  will  then  be  asked  to

complete an online quiz.     

Greetings 

Age group: 16-18 

Background: Albanian students 

Topic: The differences between American English and Britis

h English 

Step  1; 

Ask a Q. Have you ever watched a movie or heard a native talk

English and were perplexed by what

you heard? (Hold your thoughts) 

Well, we

’

re going to watch a video that has to do with...

And while we watch it, I want you to focus on the story, culture

al elements, pronunciation, lexis etc.

because we

’

ll be discussing about them in 4-5 minutes

’

 time. 

Step 2. 

General discussion. 

The  differences  Brainstormed  from  watching  the  video  are  li

sted  either  on  a  document,  on  the

computer or on the whiteboard.  

Step 3. 

Let students know the objectives, hence what they are expect

ed to learn by the end of the lesson.  

Step 4. 

The class is divided into 3 groups, each with its own teac

her, in other words, each group will have a 

teacher, each of which will focus on a specific aspect

 i.e. grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary

The three teachers will explain their respective topics

to their groups using their own tools and 

devices and then the students will share what they

’

ve learnt with the other groups. In this way, 

creating a classroom with groups of experts in specific f

ields. Each group of experts is to impart their 

knowledge  (what  they  learnt)  with  the  rest  of  the  class

.  Teachers  fill  in  when  students  have

difficulties. 

Comment:  

Drawing our students attention is crucial for activating th

em in the teaching and learning process. 

Thus, we decided to play an interesting video first and then h

ave them do some brainstorming and  

think about why knowing the differences between the two and al

so understanding the two main  

varieties is imperative to being able to communicate wit

h natives. The ideas brainstormed will serve

as starting points to build up on when doing the  explanative

  part.  We decided  not to start off with

the objectives as we didn

’

t want the  students to  lose  interest in what they

we

re going to do, and so

keep them in suspense until the fun part started

.

There is going to be an introduction to the main differenc

es by each teacher first, and then the class is

to  be  divided  into three  groups,  each  of  which  serving  as  exper

ts  for  a  particular  sub-topic.  At  this

stage, we are not sure about what

’

s to come next because we

’

re still discussing ideas.  

The final plan we had 30 minutes before entering the classro

om.

A-

Andrin 

Hello everyone and welcome! I

’

m Mr Shehu.

How are we doing today? (students answer) Lovely weather aint it? 

Prezi

–

 Background information

B-

Fioralda

Hi, I

’

m M.s Toshkesi .

Prezi

–

 Shall we begin?

Today

we

’

re going to talk about the differences between British and American English.

C-

Fitore

Greetings to all, I

’

m Ms. Dida. Are you aware of the differences between these two varieties?

(Students answer)

What variety do you think you speak?

D-

Andrin

Prezi - What should we know about the differences and why do you think we should

 know the

differences between them? (Students answer)

This leads us to the objectives, the purpose of our lesson today. By the end

of the lesson we should

be able to:

E-

Fitore

Great! Now, let

’

s get the show on the road because it

’

s time for us to watch some cartoons each of

which speak a different variety. While we watch them we are going to focus on thei

r pronunciation

and the vocabulary the use.

VIDEO

F-

Fioralda

How did you find the video? (Students answer) 

What differences did you notice? (Students answer)

What was going on in the cartoons? (Students answer)

Prezi- Pronunciation

G-

Fitore

Explain all pronunciation differences. While explaining (Andrin opens tabs o

n his laptop of the words

and plays each them when I give him the cue). E.g.

–

rhoticity:  give example, read the first word only:

Andrin BrEng/ Fior AmEng and also Oxfords (dictionary) pronunciation of

 the two varieties. For the

other examples, I make a table Br- Am and write the transcriptions on the

blackboard, the students

read them and then Andrin plays Oxfords pronunciation so they can self-

check. I move on to the

next pronunciation point and the process repeats.

Superb everyone! 

H-

Andrin

Let

’

s move on to something else. We

’

re going to watch a video of an American lady who at first was

pleased about going to England, but during her visit we will n

otice some misunderstandings and

that

’

s what we

’

re going to try and explain as soon as the video is over.

VIDEO

I-

Fioralda

You have a minute to talk to the person sitting next to you abou

t the misunderstandings you picked

up on. ( Turn stopwatch on for 1 minute on IPhone)

Ok, times up. Who can tell me one misunderstanding you noticed? ( Stud

ent answers)

Someone else please? ( Student answer

s)

Shall we have a look at what some of the misunderstandings were related to and you

 can check

whether you were right? (students answer)

Prezi

–

 Vocabulary

J-

Most of the differences we noticed were related to food right? Andrin starts expl

aining the first few

differences

–

 Vicky brings out the realia and demonstrates; eg

–

 when cookies are mentioned, Vick

brings them out (you mention them and Vick can say what the differences in v

ocab are if you aren

’

t

sure about them) While Andrin speaks, Fior zooms in and out of the pics.

K-

Fior explains the rest of the differences (or mentions them and I explain while dem

onstrating them

and Andrin zooms in and out of the pics). 

L-

Fior

–

 I

’

m going to give you some handouts with exercises that are related to the

vocabulary

differences mentioned and I want you to fill in the blanks with the

............

.

You have 1-2 minutes to fill them in . (Set timer on iPhone)

Ok, who wants to be the icebreaker? ( students answer)

Thank you everyone! You were outstanding! 

M-

References/ Thanks and Credits.  Andrin mentions the references. Fior thanks and I Read t

he

credits.( I read my email, Fior hers, Andrin his) 

N-

Vick - Here

’

s a treat for you! We are going to play a game. You are going to be di

vided into two

groups. This is one group, and this is the other one. Each group

 will have its assistant (Andrin- Fior)

for when they are stuck and need hints to find the right answer. On my mark,

 each assistant is going

to fly a plane with a specific word on it, the word may be in American E

nglish or in British English.

The first member of the group to say the opposite of the variety that i

s on the plane wins a point.

The group with the most points wins. Ms. Daniela and I will be the

ones to judge over who said it

first. The winners get all the food except for the pie ( cos that

’

s for us. :P

Now, who

’

s hungry? (Students answer) Speak up cos

’

 we can

’

t have you racking your brain on an empty

stomach.

As can be noticed, many things have changed from one lesson plan to th

e other. In addition to that, the final

product was not the same as what we had planned either. 

An impediment that I believed we would come across had to

 do with time, turned out I was right. An

hour  would  have  been  enough  for our  lesson,  but thirty  minut

es  surely  would  not  do,  so  we  had to

make  some  major  adjustments  to  it.  Despite  these  adjust

ments,  we  also  ended  up  making  further

adjustments during the lesson and leaving out a video and a rol

e play we had initially planned.

Class management was something with which I didn

’

t think we would have difficulties, but it turned

out to be the opposite. I had never been in a classroom w

ith 3 leading teachers, despite that, I didn

’

t

think  it  would  be  troublesome.  However,  it  proved  the  opposite  a

s  I  personally  found  it  hard  to

coordinate with my colleagues due to my striving to make the le

sson interesting. To add to that, the

environment also jinxed us as I didn

’

t have a place to stash the realia we had brought, I was

obliged

to  put  them  in  front  of  our  adult  students  were  so  hungry  that

  they  couldn

’

t  resist  the  view  of  the

pudding

s.

As the days of our presentation were drawing near, so many t

hings were yet

to

 be done.   

Every  week  that  had  gone  by  we  had  added  something  new  to  our  pro

ject.  As  we  added  new

elements 

and removed others, few of the ideas we had at the beginning stoo

d

to

 that day. 

Balancing the amount of information we intend

ed

 on giving with the activities was one of the ways

we'd thought of going about it. For every theoretical part

, there  was a practical one. Furthermore, to

notice whether our students remember

ed

 what was taught, we involved them  in a super-fun activity

which took them back to the old days

I couldn't find grammatical mistakes,only they used long steps.

kes,

Final Report

Subject: English
Audience: 10-th grade
Teachers: Anila Gega and Xhevrie Koleci
Topic: American culture vs British culture
Objectives:
>1. Talk about American culture vs British culture
>2. Use the characteristics of British and American culture to communicate about them.
>3. To express different sayings, collocations, and expressions that belong to American vs British culture.

I think that our presentation didn't go in such a great manner for many reasons and the steps we  had planned before.

In fact we tried a lot, but we couldn't express and present our task as we wished.

Firstly, we prepared to talk about a brief history of American and British culture.

After that, we set some objectives for our students, which are mentioned above.

As we know in teaching, we use main skills that students need to develop their knowledge when they are learning, such as: reading, writing, listening, and speaking, these skills are needed in every class.

We tried to use technology tools: computer, the projector, video maker, and our audio recorder which they are extremely helpful for us to teach students.

The lesson as planned was divided in two parts: I explained about American culture and my colleague  Xhevrie explained about British one.

We started with the theory of American and British culture,and then with the characteristics of  their culture.

We've shown a video when an American and a British women were talking about the difference between their culture, and also we've shown our audio recorder.

We asked some questions our students about the topic in order to reinforce the lesson and to reflect it.
In spite of our difficulties during that class we thanked the students and the lesson was over.

step 5.

Step 5.  Teaching with technology can deepen student learning by supporting instructional objectives.

We have used technology in the classroom, because nowadays  technology can encompass all kinds of tools from low-tech pencil, paper, and chalkboard, to the use of presentation software, or high-tech tablets, online collaboration and conferencing tools, and more. The newest technologies allow us to try things in physical and virtual classrooms that were not possible before. What you use depends fundamentally on what you are trying to accomplish.

If we will not use the right technology or just depending on it then our role as a teacher will fail meaning that Computers can help good schools do some things better, but they do nothing positive for underperforming schools. This means, very specifically, that efforts to fix broken schools with technology or to substitute for missing teachers with technology invariably fail,

So we have been working with Presentation software (such as PowerPoint) which enabled us to embed these elements that we thought it would be appropriate according for the topic that we choose “British  vs. American culture.

The elements that we used are:

Video- we brought a video in class so the student can focus on the way a British behaves and the way an  American behaves also the video shows the differences  of English and American in the vocabulary.

Voice recorder – we have recorded our own voice.

Images- we have shown some images of traditional food that each culture use,

XHEVRIE KOLECI  AND ANILA GEGA

Project-Based Learning

Project-Based learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge  and  skills by working for an extended period of time  to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question ,problem or challenge.


Key knowledge, the project is focused on student  learning goals, including skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration.





Challenging problem or question, the project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer.




Sustained Inquiry, students engage in a rigorous process, finding resources, and applying information.





Authenticity,the project features real-world context,tasks and tools, standards or impact.




Student Voice and choice, students make some decisions about the project including how they work what they create.




Reflection,students  and teachers reflect on learning,quality of students work obstacles and how to overcome.




Revision,students give, receive and use feedback to improve their process.




Public product,students make their project work public by explaining,displaying or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.




What skills can project -based learning help your students develop?

critical thinking

collaboration

creativity

all of the answers are correct.

Which is the best way to learn Engish?

In my opinion to learn  a foreign language
is more important to focus on
grammar before and then
vocabulary.If pupils learn eglish
through TV ,they cannot be able to create
 a sentence or phrase logically
 but they speak and write mechanically.So they can express freely in Engish because they have knowledge in expresing but not in grammar.Grammar is key of English and other competences as well,such as Reading,Writing,Listening and Speaking.