As I was attending fall semester in Front Range's TESOL program, I was also co-teaching the Saturday morning ESL class. This class originated about two years prior via the Latino Chamber of Commerce and was originally designed to be a business English class. By the time I got involved with this group of students, it had become a general English class -- not business oriented. Our fall term was eight classes long, and the topic of the term was "community." The students are high beginner/low intermediate level.
Over the course of the eight classes, we talked about community -- what it means, the different kinds of communities we are part of, the amenities that are found in our communities. We learned the names of "things around town," like the fire station, post office, coffee shop, etc. Through this, we also learned some prepositions of place (on, across, at, around, near, between) to describe where things are located in relation to one another.
Throughout our term, we read The Great Kapok Tree. It is the story of a man who goes into the Amazon jungle to chop down a tree but is convinced by the animals of the forest not to do so because it is their home, their shelter, their source of food, and their shade. For a final project, my co-teacher and I planned to have the students work in the computer lab and type up their thoughts on how the book tied to the theme of community. My co-teacher was unfortunately unable to attend our last class due to an emergency, and I made the decision to offer students a choice on their final project: Would they like to work in the computer lab to type their papers, or would they like to work together as a group and create a poster about the book and about community? The students opted for the latter and created a wonderful poster.
At the end of every class, we gave an exit ticket so that students could tell us one thing they learned that day and how they felt about class. We also gave homework at the end of each class: (1) Read the next portion of The Great Kapok Tree and (2) tell us how you practiced English outside of class this week.
Here is one lesson plan from our term:
Day 3 Lesson Plan
Goals:
Students will be able to use prepositions of place to describe locations.
Students will read part of a story aloud and define vocabulary together.
Students will be able to describe their neighborhood.
Materials:
Cups and small objects like dice
Printouts of the next 4 pages of The Great Kapok Tree
Homework handouts
Exit ticket printouts
Example of “my street” paragraph
Preposition worksheets
Scaffolded activity 1 (10 minutes):
- TAs (TESOL students) will give directions to ESL students to practice prepositions (“the ball is on the cup”) and the student will model it with props.
- The ESL students will direct the TAs to place objects in a certain configuration (“the ball is next to the cup”)
Scaffolded activity 2 (10 minutes):
Students will work on a preposition worksheet, filling in the correct words. Work in partners and then go over answers together.
Less scaffolded activity (20-30 minutes):
The teacher will provide a paragraph describing their street using prepositions of place. Students will each read one sentence aloud. Then students will write a similar paragraph describing their street or neighborhood using the example as a model. Students will share in partners and then with the whole class.
Homework and The Great Kapok Tree reading
Teachers will go over homework first and ask what students did to practice English during the week. Share in partners and then discuss as a class.
Then teachers will ask students for the vocabulary words that they weren’t sure about from the reading and write a list on the board. Let the students know that right now we are just making a list and will come back to the words.
Pair or group students with a TA. The students will read the text aloud. The TA should give guidance about pronunciation and answer any questions that the student has (including about vocab).
Then the class will come back together and look at the list of vocabulary words and define the words together. Have the students write down or draw what the words mean.
The teachers will ask open-ended questions about the story.
What do you think will happen next?
What do you think it feels like in the jungle?
Why do you think the animals got quiet?
Wrap-up:
Pass out homework and explain it: 4 pages of the book. Circle words you don’t know.
Pass out exit tickets.
Invite students to stay if they wish and do homework or ask questions.