As a partial fulfillment of the course requirements for English 559, the students are asked to write a reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary lesson plan for a target audience. This unit of lesson plans is designed to last one week. The following Unit is prepared for an ESL class and is designed for an Intermediate Class in the Program of Intensive English (PIE) at Northern Arizona University. The teacher I will be working with this summer and next year will be Kate Donnely. In the one interview I have had with her, she informed me that her students were Intermediate in level and mostly from Japan. I plan on continuing this project next fall, writing many more lesson plans for Kate Donnely in preparation for some of my ESL methodology classes.
This ESL class is held at the local University. The students are comprised of predominantly Japanese decent and are at the Intermediate level. The class meets daily. All students speak English and most all of the students speak Japanese. The class will be taught entirely in English. We have eighteen ESL students in our classroom.
Pre-lesson Inventory: Overview of Lesson goal: By the end of this lesson, students will:
l) Have a basic understanding of how to
scan a paragraph for main idea and
subordinate details.
2) Have exercised the skills of
scanning and skimming for information.
3) Have improved reading comprehension.
4) Understand better the relationship
between the topic sentence (the sentence
which holds
the main idea, and subordinate clauses and sentences that
contain
the main idea.
Materials to take to class: Highlighters. One color to underline the main topic sentence in a paragraph, another color to underline the details in the paragraph which support the topic sentence that has the main idea. Handouts of Main Idea Activity, chalk, chalk board.
Equipment Necessary for Class: None
Assignments to collect form students: Main Idea Handout. Teacher will collect this assignment at the conclusion of the first class period.
Special Room Arrangments: Students will sit in their desk which will be laid out in a semi-circle. We have eighteen students.
Warm-up Activity --l0 minutes
Free-writing assignment: Each day in this ESL class, we will have a free-writing activity. The possible topics will be on the board. Students know that they can pick from these suggested topics or pick their own. Students have already been told that they need to write for l0 minutes on a topic of their choice. Students know that they will not be graded for spelling or grammar problems in their free-writing assignments.
Suggested topic: What foods do you like to eat.
Procedure: l) Teacher writes
two topics on the board.
2) Teacher tells students to begin writing.
Let them write. While the students are writing in their free-writing notebooks, the teacher is also writing in her/his freewriting notebooks. It is good modeling behavior to do what you are asking the students to do.
Transition (from warm up activity to Activity l)
Teacher says, "Now that you have finished
your free-writing and your juices are flowing, we will talk about paragraphs,
main ideas in them, and supporting details in them.
Twenty minutes Activity l
Reading for Main Idea and Details in a Paragraph
Purpose: The specific purpose of this lesson (which will be carried out on the board in front of the class) is to help students read for a specific purpose. In this case the purpose is to read for the main idea in a paragraph.
Materials: The teacher needs to bring chalk and a prepared lesson.
Procedure: Teacher will go to the
chalk board and write a topic sentence on the board such as "Sports allow
people to let off steam in a positive way."
Next, the teacher will ask a general question
like: "In what ways do sports allow people to vent steam in a positive
way?" The teacher will then list some phrases on the board that show
some details that will support the main idea. For example:
"Because you can run alot in football or soccer."
"Because the energy you expend makes you exhausted." "Because your
teammates count on you so you have to concentrate on something other than
how you feel."
So, you end up with a model on the board for the students which will look something like this:
Sports are good for both men and women because they allow people to vent steam in a positive way. Instead of kicking a person, for example, a person could play soccer to vent his frustrations. As well, in baseball, you get to hit the ball very hard, and throw the ball to vent frustrations.. Racketball also is an excellent sport that allows people to slam balls against walls and let off tension. All in all, exercise and sports are good ways to let off steam in a positive way.
Next: The teacher will ask if one of the students wishes to go up to the chalkboard and underline the sentence which has the main idea in it. It is important at this point to let the students know that the main idea is not always in the first sentence. Sometimes, actually, the main idea is in the second sentence and occasionally the final sentence in a paragraph. The teacher may choose, if the students are still confused about identifying the main idea, to do another sample paragraph on the board which has the topic sentence that carries the main idea last. The teacher next can underline the sentences in a different color chalk that have the supporting details.
Transition:
"Now that we have gone over what the main idea in a paragraph looks like, lets see if you can identify some of these main ideas in some paragraphs I have written up for you on this worksheet. Just do the best you can. Work in pairs if it is better for you. What I want is for you to learn this idea and if you can learn it better with a partner, you may work in pairs. Choose one of the people sitting next to you.
Activity 2
Teacher will pass out the handout entitled:
"Reading for The Main Idea and Supporting Details (see micro-teaching activity).
Reading for The Main Idea
Time: This portion of the lesson will take about fifteen minutes.
Directions: Please read each of the
following paragraphs carefully. Underline, after you read every sentence,
the main idea in yellow magic marker. Next, underline the supporting
details in blue. Do this for each paragraph. Teacher will go
over this assignment in class.
Paragraph #l
Eggs are very nutritious. Eggs have a lot of protein and are low in calories. Eggs also have a lot of vitamin A and D. Vitamins A and D are good for your skin and hair. Eggs have very few calories, about ninety per egg. Eggs also can be mixed with other foods which make them even more nutritious, for example if you put hardboiled eggs in salads. Eggs are a good food and they are good for you.
* Students will have highlighted
the main idea of this paragraph with yellow and the supporting details
in blue.
Paragraph #2 sometimes I do not know where to go when I am ill. There are so many choices now regarding health professionals that sometimes it is hard to figure out where to go for what problem. For example, if you have a cold, you can go to a "regular" medical doctor and get medicine, or you can go to a homeopathic healer that uses different kinds of remedies. As well, you can go to a chiropractor who could balance your spine, put your bones in place and fix you that way. I suppose you could also go to the reservation and go to a medicine man and be healed as well. When there are so many choices, sometimes it is hard to figure out where to go and for what problem.
Again, students will highlight the sentence
with the main idea in yellow, the details will be highlighted in blue.
Paragraph #3
Children are like flowers. Children are like flowers because they come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Like flowers, children are beautiful and from nature. They sway in the breeze like flowers, they soak up the sun like flowers, and they dance in the rain like flowers. In many ways, Children are like flowers.
Again, students will highlight the main idea in yellow, the details in blue.
The students will hand in their papers at the end of the period. They will be told that the answers will be gone over the next day. Papers will be handed back to their owners and gone over as a class the next day.
Closing activity Students will be
congratulated for doing their best on their assignment. readinglessonplan.html
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