Time: approximately 90 minutes Objective: Students will be able
to use context clues to derive meaning for unknown vocabulary.
(Because this is designed as an integrated skills lesson, a
secondary objective is for students to continue to develop their
listening skills and oral fluency on a wide variety of topics.)
Pre-reading Task: Deriving Clues from Context (15 minutes) Tell
students that we're going to be reading about natural disasters.
Ask a few questions to stimulate interest in the reading task.
(What do you do when you're reading and you come to a new word?
How often do you use your dictionary? Why is it bad to keep
referring to dictionary over the course of a short reading?)
Once students have determined their own reasons for wanting to
avoid heavy dictionary usage, you can guide them in this task.
Give them some examples of deriving meaning from context; the
sentences below use natural disasters as the topic. (You can
either write these examples on the board or distribute
photocopies to the students