When Simple is Beautiful: The Hook Book Look Took Lesson Structure

Tedjaatmadja, Herwindy Maria and Renandya, Willy (2012) When Simple is Beautiful: The Hook Book Look Took Lesson Structure. In: TEFLIN 2012, 06-11-2012 - 08-11-2012, Surabaya - Indonesia.

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Abstract

The purpose of our talk is to introduce a four-step lesson structure which is simple but flexible enough to be used for teaching English to Young Learners (EYL). Young learners (age 5-12) tend to have short attention spans, so it is important for teachers to break the boredom. Given this situation, we offer an alternative lesson plan framework, namely The Hook Book Look Took (HBLT) which was originally developed by Lawrence O Richards and Gary J Bredfeldt (1998), and subsequently adapted by Renandya Tedjaatmadja (in press). This four-step lesson structure begins with the Hook, which serves as an initial attention-getter, followed by the Book, which forms the main phase of the lesson and takes the form of teacher read-alouds. In the next phase, the Look, children are invited to notice relevant language features from the stories read aloud by the teacher, and the last phase, the Took, provides key takeaways of the lesson. In this presentation, we describe the four steps in detail and discuss a number of principles that underpin this lesson structure. We draw principles from general learning theories (e.g., multi-sensory learning, active learning through play, social learning principle) and from second language learning theories (e.g., meaning focused learning via comprehensible input, form-focused learning via noticing pertinent language features), which we believe are particularly relevant for teaching language to young learners. We then provide a sample lesson to illustrate how this lesson structure is put into practice and describe what we have learned from trying out this lesson with a class of young children. Throughout the presentation, we invite participants to share their experiences of developing lessons and teaching young children with us, thus enriching each others’ experience. This presentation is particularly relevant for teachers of young children who are keen to explore newer approaches to engaging the young minds.

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