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SEASONS
In these ten bracingly subversive tales, all her gifts of characterisation and
observation are fully engaged, summoning forth the horrors so often concealed behind
everyday facades. Childhood cruelty is played out behind the bushes in 'Comma';
nurses clash in 'Harley Street' over something more than professional differences; and
in the title story, staying in for the plumber turns into an ambiguous and potentially
deadly waiting game.
This unit was designed for an ESL pullout program model for middle school ELL
students, Levels 2 4; however, it would also work well for an Immersion program model.
It mostly centers around content based instruction (CBI) of topics in Earth science: seasons
and weather. The unit also relates to Social Studies topics in American culture. It does this
by giving students background cultural knowledge and vocabulary about some American
holidays and traditions, in a way that allows students to connect with their own cultural
backgrounds. This unit plan is intended to provide these ESOL students with the background
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knowledge needed to keep pace and excel in mainstream classrooms while building their
English language skills and proficiency.
For the purpose of this unit plan, the definition of Levels 2 4 would be ESOL students
with proficiency levels anywhere between advanced beginning/ early production through
advanced level for this age group. Each lesson plan contains activities in which students of
all these proficiency levels can participate, however, each lesson also provides ways to
scaffold instruction for lower proficiency levels and differentiate instruction for students of
higher proficiency levels. The goal is to provide a natural approach to learning (i+1), in
which students are motivated to learn in a safe, risk-free environment and challenged at the
appropriate levels to meet a high set of expectations.
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Four Skills:
Listening: Students listen to their partners in pair discussions. They also listen to the
informal student presentations given in class.
Speaking: Students converse with partners and then present information to the class.
Reading: Students look at the visual aids presented by the teacher during the warm-up.
Writing: Students write down their personal preferences and then take notes during pair
discussions.
(3) Practice
1. Students are encouraged to paraphrase the information their partners share with them
during the pair discussions to check their comprehension before presenting to the rest
of the class. Prior to this, the teacher reviews the learning strategy of paraphrasing.
2. Students practice using English for both personal expression and for sharing the views
of others.
(4) Evaluation
1. Students are able to write down some of their likes and dislikes in English.
2. Students are able to work with a partner and able to accurately share and paraphrase
information which their partner communicated to them.
(5) Expansion/ Extension
1. Students will create a poster depicting the four seasons and some of their favorite
aspects about each one.
Methods/Approaches/Strategies: CBI; Natural Approach
Other Activities:
Follow-up: The teacher will present a hypermedia presentation to the students on
seasons during the following class, which expands on the topics discussed during this
lesson. Students will present their posters at the end of the unit.
Assessment: Teacher moves around the classroom, observing student discussions during
partner activity. She also informally checks written notes the students produced about
their own preferences.
Homework Assignments: Students will design a layout for their personal poster and
begin looking for visual materials to represent aspects they personally like about each of
the four seasons. Students will bring a poster design (either handwritten or using
computer software such as Inspiration) to the next class, along with any visual aids (e.g.
magazine cutouts) they could find.
Use of Technology: None
Materials Used: Wall calendar, teacher-made poster, notebook paper, pen/ pencil
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Closure: Teacher reviews homework assignment with class and gives students some
time at the end of class to start drawing a layout for their posters.
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The teacher then reviews the Holiday slides in the hypermedia presentation and again assesses
the students prior knowledge by asking them questions about each holiday. She provides
additional information as needed. She then directs the students to a WWW hyperlink within the
presentations Holiday slides for a fun website where they can go to research more information
about different holidays.
Four Skills:
Listening: Students listen as the teacher and other students relay information during the
hypermedia navigation. Music clips are also incorporated into the hypermedia.
Speaking: Students respond to informal questions from the teacher.
Reading: Students view the hypermedia presentation as the teacher navigates it in front
of the class.
Writing: Students will write about their holiday traditions in the homework assignment.
(3) Practice
1. Students may use some of the vocabulary from the seasonal Activities and/ or
Holiday slides for their poster project.
2. Students will later have an opportunity to explore the hypermedia on their own and
research holidays on the Internet.
(4) Evaluation
1. Students are able to identify vocabulary for the Activity slide images when the
teacher again reviews these slides at the end of class. They are also able to describe some
of the activities using English.
2. Students are able to write about holidays which they celebrate in the homework
activity.
(5) Expansion/ Extension
1. Students work individually or with a partner to research more holidays on the Internet.
2. Students work in groups to create a class PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the
celebration of certain holidays in different cultures. Each group would contribute a few
slides to the final presentation.
Methods/Approaches/Strategies: CBI; Natural Approach
Other Activities:
Follow-up: The teacher will come back to review the Activity slides and vocabulary
words later in the week. They will also be revisited during a unit review game on the last
day of the unit.
Assessment: The teacher does an informal assessment during the vocabulary review at
the end of class.
Homework Assignments: Students will write about some of their own customs and
traditions for holidays that they and/ or their families personally celebrate. It should
include a description of each holiday (name and time of year), traditional customs, etc.
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Level 2 students are only required to write short sentences whereas Level 4 students will
write out short paragraphs with more complex sentence structures. The teacher provides
each student with a handout, detailing the specific instructions for that persons
homework assignment. She also reviews the assignment with the class and models
examples on the board.
Use of Technology: Projector, MS PowerPoint for warm-up, MS PowerPoint
hypermedia presentation, Internet
Materials Used: T-charts, notebook paper, pen/ pencil
Closure: The teacher hands out a small piece of paper to each student. On the paper,
each student anonymously writes whether they liked the hypermedia activity (Yes) or
not (No) and the reason(s) why. This completed survey will be their ticket out of the
classroom.
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goes to the chart posted on the board and uses a marker to completely fill in a row for that
presenter. There is a different note taker for each presenter.
After each student finishes their informal presentation to the class, the teacher encourages
students to pose questions to the presenter. The teacher asks questions too; however, each
student is required to ask at least two questions during the class activity. Every column must be
filled out for the presenters row on the class chart before moving on to the next presenter.
Four Skills:
Listening: Students listen to the informal presentations.
Speaking: Each student presents to the rest of the class.
Reading: Students can read the notes on the class chart; Level 2 students can also refer to
their vocabulary handouts.
Writing: Students take turns filling in the class chart during the presentations.
(3) Practice
1. Students take turns presenting and taking notes.
(4) Evaluation
1. Students are able to verbally communicate some of their holiday traditions with the
class in English.
2. Note takers are able to summarize the presenters statements in written English.
(5) Expansion/ Extension
1. Students could prepare and give formal class presentations, in English, about one
important holiday tradition celebrated in their families using MS PowerPoint, symbolic
artifacts, photographs, or other visual aids. Likewise, this could be done in pairs/ groups
by assigning a different holiday to each team, which they would then research using the
WWW and other resources.
Methods/Approaches/Strategies: CBI; Natural Approach; Extension activity could incorporate
cooperative learning if the project is done in teams.
Other Activities:
Follow-up: Students may incorporate holidays into their poster project. Questions from
the informal presentations will also come up during a unit review game at the end of the
week.
Assessment: Teacher observes whether students are able to successfully present, take
notes, and pose questions during the activity. She also observes if/ how the lower level
ELLs utilize the vocabulary handouts during the presentations.
Homework Assignments: Students continue working on poster project.
Use of Technology: Extension activity could include the Internet and multimedia.
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Materials Used: Jumbo sheet of paper for class chart; permanent markers; vocabulary
handouts; Post-it notes
Closure: The teacher reminds students to continue working on their poster projects. She
also hands a Post-it note to each student and asks them to write one new thing they
learned during the presentations. They then place their note over on the parking lot
posted in class before leaving.
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literacy and oral language proficiency level. See Appendix A (pages A-1 thru A-3) for sample
differentiated cloze activities for this lesson and explanations for each.
Four Skills:
Listening: Students watch and listen to the video segment(s).
Speaking: Student volunteers describe weather terminology during the vocabulary
review with the hypermedia slides.
Reading: Students read the cloze activity and associated materials (see App. A).
Writing: Students write in the missing words in the cloze activity.
(3) Practice
1. Students review vocabulary terms, drawing on prior knowledge.
2. Students complete cloze activity in class.
(4) Evaluation
1. Students turn in cloze activities to the teacher at the end of class. The teacher later
marks any incorrect responses and then returns the exercises to the students. The teacher
then reviews the completed cloze activities with the entire class so that students can fix
any of their errors.
(5) Expansion/ Extension
1. Students work individually or in pairs to create their own weather forecast using the
Weather Channels Interactive Weather Forecast at www.weatherclassroom.com. Refer
to Appendix B on page A-4 of this unit plan to see how this works.
Methods/Approaches/Strategies: CBI; Natural Approach
Other Activities:
Follow-up: Students may incorporate weather pictures/ terminology into their poster
projects. Weather related vocabulary will also be revisited during a unit review game at
the end of the week.
Assessment: Teacher informally assesses comprehension during the vocabulary review
at the beginning of class. She also reviews how many responses each student answered
correctly in the cloze activities. In doing so, she notes any trends to identify areas which
may need additional review/ explanation in class. This could also be an indication of a
flaw in the cloze activity itself (e.g. too advanced for learner level, confusing sentence
structure, etc.) which the teacher may need to improve.
Homework Assignments: Students complete final poster project to share in class the
following day.
Use of Technology: TV/ VCR, Internet (extension activity), Projector, MS PowerPoint
hypermedia presentation, video segment
Materials Used: Handouts with cloze activities, pen/ pencil
Closure: Teacher repeats expectations for final poster project and previews the agenda
for the following class (i.e. class game to review unit topics).
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Four Skills:
Listening: Students listen as other students present their posters. Students listen as each
Jeopardy answer is read aloud; they must then listen to their teammates as they determine
the correct question response.
Speaking: Students orally present their posters to the rest of the class. They also speak to
their teammates during the game and present their responses orally to the teacher.
Reading: Students read the Jeopardy categories and game answers as they appear on the
game board.
Writing: Students write out some of their own Jeopardy answers for the teacher to use
for additional rounds of the game.
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