Apartment Ad Reading Lesson

by Bryan Woerner | 23 Aug 2013

This lesson plan is designed to enable adult students to read and use newspaper advertisements to find information about an apartment available for rent. The lesson plan is for beginning and intermediate levels.

Resource Type: Lesson Plan

Audience: Adult

Audience Language Proficiency: Beginner, Intermediate

Materials And Technology:

Worksheets and ads

Objective:

activate background knowledge by writing in their journal about where they live and talking briefly about it.
practice scanning the ads, looking for specific information such as name, location, rent, and other features
practice skimming to find out where the ads can be found, where the apartments can be found, and why it is important to read the ads.
select features and rental prices their group wants in an apartment before reading the ads.
read the ads to find an apartment based on the features and prices selected by the group.
discover new vocabulary items and their part of speech through context and collocation.
discover the meanings of abbreviations used in the apartment ads through context.
discuss which ads are easier to read and which ones are nicer looking.
discuss whether or not the nicer-looking ads are more expensive than the rest.
look at apartment ads as they actually appear in the newspaper and find one to discuss in class the next day.
discuss what Equal Housing Opportunity (EHO) means (time permitting).

Procedure:

Warm-Up: Before class as students wander in (about 10 minutes)

Talk to students about the neighborhoods they live in, what their house or apartment is like
Journal Question: Do you live in a house or an apartment? Is it small or large? How many rooms does it have? What do you like about it?

Pre-Reading: 10 minutes

Ask for volunteers to talk about their apartments/homes they wrote about in their journals.
Thank the volunteers.
Tell students we will be talking about apartments and how to find one using the newspaper.Pass out ads to students

Scanning: 15 minutes

Have students look at the questions on the Looking For Specific Information worksheet.
Tell students they do not always have time to read every word in an ad.
Tell students they can learn a lot from an ad by just looking quickly for specific information, such as rent price, location, and features.
Go over questions on worksheet to see if there are any difficulties.
Model scanning by using ad #3.
Point out the name, the location at the top of the ad, the $ indicates price.
After each example, have a volunteer repeat the answer and where it can be found in ad #3
Have students read the text for 2 minutes.
Observe each student’s progress to see who might be having difficulty and who is finishing quickly.
STOP after 2 minutes.
Call on those students who have finished early to provide answers to worksheet.
Be sure to repeat the answers students give and to thank the volunteers.
Pass out Looking For More Information worksheet.

Skimming: 15 minutes

Bring students’ attention to Looking For More Information worksheet.
Tell students now that they know some specifics about the apartment, they need to know where the apartments and the ads can be found as well as which apartments are worth looking at.
Have the students look over the worksheet.
Check to see if they understand the task
Read the directions aloud, and then ask a volunteer to explain the directions.
Repeat directions to ensure everyone hears them again.
Give students 2 minutes to skim the ads.
Monitor those students who had trouble with scanning.
Look to see who has been able to get to question 5.
Stop them after 2 minutes.
Select volunteers to answer questions 1 and 2.
Elicit answers from whole class for question 4.
Elicit responses from class for question 5.
Explain that it is important to be able to know where and how to find information in an apartment so that students and their families can find a place to live that is right for them.

Thorough Reading/Comprehension Check: 25 minutes

Tell the students they will be reading the ads one more time and they will have a lot of time to read the ads.
Group them into groups of 4.
Pass out Before/After You Read worksheets.
Tell students to look over the Before You Read worksheet.
Have a volunteer read the directions, repeat those directions to class.
Ask another volunteer to explain the task one more time, tell students I am making sure they understand.
Give the groups about 5 minutes to select the features they want.
After the 5 minutes, tell the groups to read through the ads to find an apartment that has most or everything they are looking for.
Have the groups look at the After You Read worksheet.
Tell the groups to answer these questions after they find an apartment.
Give the groups 10 minutes to read the ads.
Walk around and engage the groups as they start to find apartments.
Ask questions such as “How many bedrooms does it have?” “How much is rent?” “Where is it?” etc in order to check comprehension of task and to make sure they stay on track.
Stop groups after 10 minutes.
Ask one group to quickly talk about the apartment they found, how much it is, where it is, and what features it has. If time, ask other groups.

Vocabulary: 30 minutes

Tell students that the advertisers/landlords for the apartments want you to read their ads. They want you to rent from them. To do that, they have to talk about their apartments, they have to describe them.
Pass out Vocabulary Discovery worksheet.
Have the students look at the words under Part 1.
Have the students partner up.
Tell the students that these are some of the words the advertisers use to describe their apartments.
Read the directions, have a student repeat them. Model the first item, high-speed, with the class. (high-speed is found with internet access in ads 1, 4, & 6).
Tell the students they have 5 minutes to find the rest of the words with their partner.
Monitor students to see how quickly they are progressing. Give more time if necessary.
After the 5 minutes is up, stop the students and check answers as a class, calling on different pairs.
Go back to high-speed example.
Have students guess at what high-speed means (fast).
Show students how high-speed/fast describes internet access, which is a noun.
Ask students if they have internet access. High-speed or dial-up? Is dial-up slow?
Repeat the notion that high-speed describes the internet access.
Ask students “What do you call words that describe things or noun?” as they should know what adjectives are.
After 5 minutes, tell student to look at Part 2 of the Vocabulary Discovery worksheet.
Tell the students they are to work with their partner to see if they can figure out what the remaining words might mean.
Remind them to look at the words/nouns that follow the adjectives for clues.
Give them about 10 minutes.
Monitor students’ progress, check their answers and guide them if necessary towards an acceptable meaning, have pairs that finish early help those that are struggling.
Stop the students after 10 minutes.
Ask them if there were any words they could not figure out; see if other groups have an acceptable meaning first.
Pass out Vocabulary List.
Have students look over the list.
Point out that new words often contain clues to their meaning, use the space in spacious as an example.
Point out that words like state-of-the-art and breath-taking and attention getters.They have simple meanings. Write them and their meanings on the board and ask students which word they think looks better.

Text Exploitation/Abbreviations: 20 minutes

Tell students to get out the ads.
Ask student to describe the size of the ads.
Ask students to look at the words in the ads, are they long or small.
Tell students to look at the small words, are they complete or are the missing letters.
Once the students see some of the letters are missing, tell them it is called abbreviation (write on board).
Give examples of abbreviations–sm/small, med/medium, lg/large.
Tell students that ad is an abbreviation for advertisement.
Tell students you make abbreviations using parts of the word, like the first few letters.
Ask students if they know any abbreviations, make list on the board.
Highlight how those words are abbreviated.
Tell students that newspaper space costs money, the bigger the ad, the more money it costs to print. Advertisers use abbreviations to save space.
Tell students that when looking for apartments, or other items, they need to know how to figure out what the abbreviations are.
Pass out Abbreviations worksheet and have them find a new partner.
Have them look at Part 1.
Have a student read the directions, paraphrase the directions.
Remind them there are extra words that do not have abbreviations and to look at ads 7 and 8.
Give students about 5 minutes to complete task.
Write abbreviations on board to prepare for debriefing.

After 5 minutes, have one pair give the answers to Ad 8, and another to Ad 7.
Thank students
Now tell the students they have to match the words to the abbreviations for Part 2.
Remind them there are more words than abbreviations.
Give them about 5 minutes to complete task
Write words on board to prepare for debriefing.
Stop students after 5 minutes.
Elicit answers from different pairs for each word.
Thank volunteers

Discussion: 10 minutes

Have students get back into the groups they were in for the

Before/After You Read

task.
Have them look over the apartment they chose.
Tell them they are going to pretend they want to see this apartment.
Tell them they now can look at the ad and know what it says.
BUT, there are things they need to know that aren’t in the ad.
Pass out Discussion worksheet.
Tell students they want to make an appointment to see the apartment.
Tell students they need to think of questions to ask before they make the appointment.
Go over suggestions on worksheet.
Walk around to each group to see if they are coming up with questions.
Repeat suggestions if necessary or offer example from experience (Is there a grocery store nearby–turns out there is a Giant across the street?)
Pass out Homework and new set of ads.

Related Text/Extension: 5 minutes before class ends or before they leave

Have students look over the Homework worksheet and new ads.
Tell them this is how the ads appear in the newspaper and that it may not look easy to read, but they can use what they know already to help them.
Tell them they are to find an apartment.
Tell them to use the worksheet to describe the apartment.
They are expected to hand this in completed the next class day.
Note: There is something similar, though not as complicated, on the final and this serves as an indirect way of assessing the success of the lesson.

Extra Material If Time Permitting

There is an information sheet on the Equal Housing Opportunity (EHO).
Time permitting, the class can discuss what EHO stands for and why it is important.

Assessment: Assessment is ongoing throughout the lesson.

Differentiation:

Subsequent lessons could include:

o Listening/Speaking lesson on calling about an apartment for rent

o Reading a lease agreement

o Filling out a mortgage application (if students are planning to buy a home)

References:

Brady, B (2003). “Designing Communicative Lessons.” American University TESOL. Retrieved April 10, 2007 from http://www.american.edu/tesol/Lessonplans.htm

Lucas, S. B. (1997). “Reading Lesson Blueprint.” American University TESOL.

Retrieved April 10, 2007 from

http://www.american.edu/tesol/Lessonplans.htm

Washington Post Classified Section (2/22/04, 10/10/04)

Useful Link:

Free Landlord Forms

Supporting Files:
Apartment Ad Reading Lesson 01.pdf
Apartment Ad Reading Lesson 02.jpg
Apartment Ad Reading Lesson 03.jpg
Apartment Ad Reading Lesson 04.pdf
Apartment Ad Reading Lesson 05.pdf