Lesson Plan

Planning lessons to teach English to children needs an important care because of the different task and activities in order students acquire the target language. As well, creating an environmental where children feel part of it.

In the workshop “Planning lessons”, I learned to take into account important details which a lesson plan has to include in it.

 

 

Lesson Plan (Speaking) PDP

 

Don Bosco University

Teaching Practicum I “Teaching English to Young Learners”

Teacher: Brenda Xiomara Ayala Arias                                    Date:

Topic: “What’s your name?”

Objective:  By the end of this lesson SWBAT spell their names and use greeting vocabulary in a short introducing conversation.

Target skill: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing          Planning Framework: PDP, PPP

 

 

Time	Stage	Activities/Procedure	Details
5 min	Wam up	Ss will be asked to stand up and make a circle, one by one will be asked to say their name and say a name of their favorite animal, fruit, food or sport as their “last name”.	Aim of the activity: Material: Type of learner: V,A,K,A. Interaction: T-S, S-S
5  min	Pre-listening	T will posted  on the board the phrases such as “Hello”, “Hi” “What is your name?” and “My name is…” - Ss will be asked to repeat the phrases.	Aim of the activity: Material: Type of learner: V,A,K,A. Interaction: T-S, S-S
10min	During listening	Ss will be asked to make a circle and to sit on the floor.T will play a short song “Hello, hello… what’s your name?, what’s your name?” After singing the song, each of the Ss will be asked to say their names using the phrase My name is…	Aim of the activity: Material: Type of learner: V,A,K,A. Interaction: T-S, S-S
15min	During listening	T will posted the phrase “How do you spell your name?” T will asked Ss say a name. Ss will be asked to help to spell that name . e.g . Maria M-a-r-i-a Ss still sitting on the floor, T will provide each Ss a page with the lyric of the song “Bingo” (including colors, images) T will teach the song, Ss will be asked to repeated. T will play the song and Ss will sing. T will asked Ss get in goups of 3 and to help each other to spell their names.	Aim of the activity: Material: Type of learner: V,A,K,A. Interaction: T-S, S-S
10min	Post-listening	T will played once the previous song “What’s your name?” and “Bingo” Ss will be asked to ask for  the name of three classmates. Using phrases “Hello”, What’s your name? How do you spell your name? “Good bye”	Aim of the activity: Material: Type of learner: V,A,K,A. Interaction: T-S, S-S

 

Type of learners: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Verbal

Interaction: T-S, S-S

 

Lesson Plan (Writing) PPP

Don Bosco University Teaching Practicum I “Teaching English to Young Learners” Teacher: Brenda Xiomara Ayala Arias            Date: August 31st  , 2015 N° of students: 15 Lesson time: 1 hour (60 min) Topic: “What’s your name?” Objective: By the end of this lesson SWBAT write and spell three different proper names by asking the question How do you spell it? Target skill: grammar/writing      Planning Framework : PPP
Time	Stage	Activities	Details
5min	Warm up	Students will stand up and play “Hot potato”. Who get the (ball) will be asked what were the questions and vocabulary  studied last class (hello, hi, what’s your name? bye, good bye)	Aim of the activity: To review the topic from last class Material: Type of learner: K, V Interaction: T-S , S-S
10min	Presentation	Teacher will post the question “How do you spell it?” as well all the letters from the alphabet on the board and Ss will asked if they remember how the letters are pronounced. Teacher will asked for help about how to spell his/her own name. Brenda B-r-e-n-d-a	Aim of the activity:To present the topic.   Material: colorful flashcards Type of learner: V,A Interaction: T-S
15min	Practice	Students will be asked to practice spelling and writing their first name and their last name. Teacher will spell 8 different proper names and students have to write each letter they listen in order to complete the name . Ss will be asked to get in pairs in order to check the names they got from the spelling. Then teacher will post a piece of paper with the name she has spelled in order children check their answers.	Aim of the activity: To practice spelling through listening and writing . Material: pieces of paper with proper names Type of learner: A, V Interaction: T-S, S-S
20min	Production	Teacher will give each students a piece of paper with a proper name, Ss will look for the person who was the same name in the piece of paper in order to get in pairs. Teacher will provide a list of proper names to each student in the pairs. Ss will take turns once spell first while the other student write.	Aim of the activity: To demonstrate Ss can write proper names when listening the spelling.   Material:list of 10 proper names Type of learner: A, V, K Interaction: T-S,  S-S
10min	Wrap up	Teacher will asked for proper names that begings with a speific letter. Who take more than 5 seconds to say a name will pass to the board and T will spell a name from the list and S has to write each letter down.	Aim of the activity: To review writing proper names by spelling   Material: list with 10 proper names Type of learner: A, V, K, V Interaction: T-S, S- S

Before planning my lessons, I already knew that there is a format which has to be followed when creating lesson plans. As well, it is important that we, language teachers know how to differentiate between the planning frameworks PPP and PDP. I think I had no problems with frameworks. However, during planning lessons, I think it was difficult for me to write the objective due to it is the guide we use for all the lesson plan structure. I consider this was an issue for me because I was not clear about what I expected or wanted my students achieved at the end of the lessons. Besides, thinking on the different activities for each of the stages was a little bit hard. I consider tasks and activities need to be meaningful, useful and to have an objective in each stage. After planning my lessons, I learned important things such as, take into account the smallest but no less important details which a lesson plan has to count with. For example: to assign a date as well to specify the materials I will use for each activity. To write the objective for each activity is so important as well. Moreover, I learned that it is also important to specify the type of learner: visual, verbal, auditory or kinesthetic. In addition, I learned that we can include more details into the lesson plan format such as the number of students we have in the course and the time which the lesson will be performed. Finally, even though I learned important things about lesson plan, I aware that I need to improve in order to create potential and meaningful lesson plans. The main objective is not only to encourage students to learn the target language, but to make them feel part of a leaning environment. One important aspect is the teacher need to know how to manage with different behaviors in the classroom and awe also are able to make arrangements in the lesson in order to adapt them according to the students’ needs.

 

Case of Study

Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Over the course of his career in child psychology, he identified four stages in childhood. He also developed new fields of scientific study, including cognitive theory and developmental psychology.

Stages established by Jean Peaget:

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years)
• Pre- operational stage (2 to 7 years)
• Concrete operational ( 7 to 11 years)
• Formal operational (11 to adulthood) 

The purpose of my project is to prove the theory about the Pre- operational stage by Jean Peaget by trying two different experiments.

Pre- operational Stage

The child in the preoperational stage is not yet able to think logically. With the acquisition of language, the child is able to represent the world through mental images and symbols, but in this stage, these symbols depend on his own perception and his intuition. This stage may be the age of curiosity; preschoolers are always questioning and investigating new things. Since they know the world only from their limited experience, they make up explanations when they don’t have one.

Child’s Profile
Name:	Sheila Abigail Ayala Arias
Age:	6 years old
School life:	“Preparatoria”
Favorite games:	Jump the rope
Favorite activities at school:	Paint, create shapes with clay.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of both experiments was to confirm the stage the child in this project is in. In this case Pre – operational stage. As well, I wanted to confirm yje theory: A child at this stage (Pre-operational stage) is not able to think in logic way and their thinking is influence by perception.

METHOD

In this project, I used two different experiments:

Experiment 1: I showed to the child two glasses with the same quantity of water. I asked her if the two glasses had the same quantity. Then, I take one of the glasses and I put the water in other glass with a different shape. After that, I asked what of the glasses had less water in it. 

EVIDENCE

Experiment 2: I showed her two lines of matches. The two lines matches had the same number of matches (5 matches each line). However, I let more space among each of matches in the first line. Then, I asked the child to count the matches for each of the lines.  I also asked her what of the lines had more matches, I asked her to count the matches again. Finally, I asked what of the lines had more matches.

EVIDENCE

FINDINGS

In the first experiment, when I asked her what of the glasses had less quantity of water in it. She responded that in fact both of the glasses had the same quantity. However, when I emptied the water into the third glass which was different, she answered the glass which was different to the first two glasses had less quantity of water in it. Moreover, the results for the second experiment had almost the same relevance to the first one. In this case, although she counted the matches for both lines, she answered the line which had more space between each match had more matches.

To conclude, both experiments successfully confirmed the Pre – operational Stage theory by Jean Peaget. Children at this stage are not able to think logically. According to the experiments applied in this project, it demonstrates that children are influence because of their own perception. In other words, they think and process information in the way they perceive objects or images. In the experiments, even though the quantity of water in the three glasses was the same, the child said that one of the glasses had less quantity of water because that is the way she perceived the image. As well, in the experiment with matches she argued that one of the lines had more matches because at simple sight for her that line it was longer than the other even though had the same quantity of matches.  Finally, it is important for teacher to integrate into the lesson plan different activities that encourage our students at the Pre- operational stage to develop cognitive skills. 

Learning Disabilities and Desorders

During the workshop, I learned about what  aggressivity in children is. As well, I increased my knowledges about Attention Deficit Desorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Desorder (ADHD)  their characteristics and causes. I also learned how to identify some symtoms about different desorders. There are activities and techniques that we as teachers can integrate into the classroom if we have a students with a deficit or desorder.

We will start by defining what aggressivity in children is.

Aggressive behavior is behavior that causes physical or emotional harm to others, or threatens to. It can range from verbal abuse to the destruction of a victim’s personal property. Children with aggressive behavior tend to be irritable, impulsive, and restless. Emotional problems are the most common cause of aggressive behavior.

A variety of factors can influence aggressive behavior, including:

• Family structure
• Emotional problems (frustration)
• Relationships with others
• School environmen
• Individual characteristics.

Types of aggressivity in children can be:

• Psychological
• Physical
• Verbal
• Social

Due to children behave in such as different ways, there are some strategies that we teachers can to apply in order to manage aggressive behaviors in the classroom.

•  Establish coexistence rules and limits in the classroom.
• Teach values: plays, presentations with puppets, games, songs, etc.
• In case of a conflict in the classroom, teacher have to respond inmediately.

It’s normal for children to occasionally forget their homework, act without thinking, forget to follow rules and instructions. But inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity are also signs of attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD), which can affect your child’s ability to learn and get along with others. The first step to addressing the problem is to recognize the signs and symptoms.

Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math.  They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention.  It is important to realize that learning disabilities can affect an individual’s life beyond academics and can impact relationships with familyand friends. Since difficulties with reading, writing and/or math are recognizable problems during the school years, the signs and symptoms of learning disabilities are most often diagnosed during that time. However, teacher have to take into acccount that learning disabilities should not be confused with learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps; of mental retardation; of emotional issues. Teachers play an important role in the classroom when teaching children with learning disabilities for the reason that children need to feel part of a learning environment.

Types of Leaning Disabilities

• Auditory Processing Disorder
• Dyscalculia
• Dysgraphia
• Dyslexia
• Language Processing Disorder

Learning difficulties

A learning difficulty is a desorder which does not affect general intelligence (IQ). Somethin important is that this kind of difficulties have cure or treatment in contrast to learning disabilities.

 

Some examples of specific learning difficulties are:

• Dyspraxia
• Dyslexia
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Desorder (ADHD)

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder that appears in early childhood. ADD/ADHD makes it difficult for people, specially to children to inhibit their spontaneous responses. Responses which can involve everything from movement to speech to attentiveness. Sometimes these children are labeled as “troublemakers”, or criticized for being lazy and undisciplined. However, they may have ADD/ADHD.

 

Children ADHD may be:

• Inattentive
• Hyperactive

• Inattentive

In order to teachers recognize if a learner propably is getting prblems when learning there are some symtoms to take into account to pay important attention to children :

 

• having a short attention span and being easily distracted
• appearing forgetful or losing things
• appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instruction
• constantly changing activity or task without finish an specific task
• being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings
• excessive physical movement
• excessive talking

 

Even though a children have a desorder, there are different strategies teacher can use to help our students to feel part of the larning process:

 

• Curricular acommodation

• Create checklist, cards or stickers.
• Put a clock in order to manage time for choldren on developing different tasks or activities
• Motivate the children to follow instructions in an interactive way.

To summarize, it is really important for us to know what aggressivity in childooh is, and what are some of its causes. Besides, is fundamental for teacher to know how to manage aggressive behavior in children when teaching in the classroom. Moreover, teacher have to know about learning disabilities and learning difficulties. It is essential to say that teachers play an important role on identifying if a student have issues on learning. There are some sings that teacher can notice in children in order to look for a professional on treating this disabilities and difficulties. Finally, the most important fact is to know what type of activities we can integrate into the lesson plan for students with aggressive behavior, learning disabilities or difficulties or children with ADD/ADHD.   

 

Teaching the Concrete Operational Child

The Concrete Opratational stage (7 - 11 years old) was considered by Jean Peaget as one of the most important stages in child’s cognitive development. This stage marks the biginning of logical and operational thoughts in childhood. Besides, the child is mature enough to use logical skills as weel their thinking is more organized and rational. Moreover, Jean Peaget’s theories influence in many different ways. It is important to take into account  to integrate direct tasks and activities which make a sucessful lesson plan, in order to help our learners develop Concrete Operational  as an essential  stage in childhood.

 

Furthermore, it is fundamental for we, language teachers take account Behavior Management when teaching children. As we already know, children demonstrate different behaviors in the classroom so that teachers have to know how to deal with and to know what is causing a certain behavior in children. For that reason, it is also important that teachers have knowledge about what the Typical Attention Span is, in order to think and integrate  meaningful activities into the lesson plan and to get advantage when our students are focused.

 

Typical Attention Span: When trying to estimate realistically how much time a child can focused on one activity.

 

In order to know the Typicl Attention Span for our students, we can use the following formula:  

(cronological age + 1) e.g  8 years old + 1 = 9 minutes
 

It is important to mention that if we provide long tasks to our students, they will get bored and they will behave inappropiately. Behavior in children look to satisfy  a necesity due to they not have the words necessary to express themselves. For this reason,  when a child behaves inappropiate, teachers should first try to identify the cause or necesity of the behavior that child is showing.

Accoding to Choice Theory by William Glasser, all behavior is motivated by an individual’s internal desire to satify basic physical and psychological needs:

 

• Love and belonging
• Freedom
• Power
• Fun

In addition, we language teachers should view child’s inappropiate behavior as a teaching opportunity to teach the child to make good chooices and that he is responsible for his actions. Teachers can teach about responsibility and appropiate behavior by providing students with choices and by setting clear boundaries.

 

 A boundary is present as a positive point that will happen when the child behaves appropiately.

 

• Be specific and clearly communicated.
• Respect the needs of the tutor and the child.
• Be set before problems occurs.
• Focus on the positive outcome.

 

 

It is important to keep in mind that teachers will not be able to teach the children responsibility or get them to make appropiate choices by using threats or conditions, losing their tempers, installing fear or being permissive. Moreover, teaching styles play an important role in the classroom. It is not possible to demand that teachers always be authoritative, as opposed to authoritarian or permissive. These teaching styles are based on two concepts: control and involvement with students.

 

 

Teaching Style Characterics

 

Permissive teachers

 

• Theacher are popular, but have a low control threshold.
• They make few demands.
• They generally show aphaty toward students progress.

  

Authoritarian teachers

 

• They are antithesis of permissive supervisors.
• They set out insuperable barriers to students – teacher involment.
• Their roles are copious and enforced.
• Encourages little interaction.
• Establishes fervent competition among students.

 

Authoritative teachers

 

• Manages the best of both worlds with regard to control and students involvement.
• Mantains not only high behavioral expectations but also classroom rigor and relationship.
• He usually encorages interactions and is warm and inviting to students.
• He is open and friendly, even though his boundaries are clearly stablished.
• He is a steady and reale role model.

 

To conclude, it is really important that teachers know how the Concrete Operational stage works in childhood and the characteristics in order to integrate different activities into a lesson plan that help students to develoment cognitive skills. Besides, it is essential for teachers know how to manage behaviors in the classroom and take advantages from, those behaviors in order to teach our learners to become responsible. Finally,. Even though authoritative teachers result to be the ideal model in classroom, we can mix the different teaching styles according to students needs.