Lesson plan 2: learner-centered integrated instructional unit plan

Lesson Plan

Grade Level	Grade 1
Disciplines/Subjects	Mathematics, English Language Arts, Social Studies
Knowledge and Skill Standards from these Disciplines/Subjects	l   Be able to read time both on analog and digital clocks in students’ daily lives. l   Be able to match time indicated on the analog clock with the same time on a digital clock. l   Understand the basic word order in English sentences: subject—predicate. l   Be able to write simple sentences using the subject and the predicate. l   Be able to describe their daily life using simple sentences. l   Recognize that people engage in different activities according to time and circumstances.
Additional Social Skill or Character Asset Standards	l   Develop positive relationships with peers and teachers through different activities. l   Take an active interest in people and communities around them. l   Be able to think about their daily lives as well as themselves.
Objectives	l   Comprehend how analog and digital clocks work and be able to read and write time displayed on the clocks and write time on their own. l   Know how many minutes are in an hour l   Identify the components of simple sentences. l   Be able to write simple sentences about themselves. l   Comprehend that people’s activities vary according to time and circumstances.
Integrating Centerpiece	My Day
Connection with students’ lives taking into consideration their cultures and opportunities	Time is closely connected to our lives. Although students usually follow the same schedule at school, what they do at a particular time at home may be very different according to their family or culture. They will learn the differences.
Overview of Curriculum-Integrated Lesson	Being able to tell time is a critical and practical skill for first grades to master. Through the lessons, students learn why an analog clock is divided into 12 sectors, although there are 24 hours in one day. Then, they learn how to read time both on analog and digital clocks through some activities. After learning how to make a simple sentence, they think about what they and their families do at certain times of the day and describe their daily life, using simple sentences.
Assessment Methods or Tasks	Assess students’ understanding and progress through the worksheets, classroom activities and their final presentation using the rubric (See Table 1, for the rubric).
Learning Environment	Students will learn in the three places: In a classroom, they will lean about reading the clock and writing simple sentences. Some activities including pair or group discussion and making their own clocks are also in the classroom. In pairs, students will walk around inside the school to find clocks and read time displayed on the clocks. At home, they will record what they and their family will be doing at particular times and prepare for their presentations.
Materials	A white board, markers, a strip of paper, an analog clock, a digital clock, strips of cardboard paper, paper dishes, pins scissors, my-day worksheets, find-a-clock worksheets, simple-sentence worksheets, Power Point slides, Evaluation sheets.
Step-by-Step Procedure	Lesson 1: 1.     Start with the question, “How many hours are there in a day?” and have a student answer the question. 2.     Stick on a white board a strip of paper numbered from one to 24 and then show an analog clock. 3.     Ask students why the clock has numbers from one to 12 and have students talk in pairs about what they know about the clock. 4.     Have some pairs explain the reasons. 5.     After introducing AM/PM indication, make small groups which have at least one student who already knows how to read an analog clock and have the groups discuss how the clock can be read. 6.     Have each group explain how to read the clock and add more information to the students’ explanations if needed. Make sure all students can identify the hour hand and the minute hand on the analog clock and have them practice reading time in hours and half hours. 7.     Ask students how many minutes are in an hour and explain that one hour has 60 minutes. If there is a student who knows about it, have him or her explain this.   8.     Provide students with paper dishes, long and short strips of cardboard with different colors. They start making their own analog clocks.   Lesson 2: 1.     Students have their own clocks they have made ready on their desks. Review how to read an analog clock. 2.     Show a digital clock and ask students whether they can read it. Have a student explain how to read the digital clock, add some information and explain the way again. 3.     Show time on the digital clock and students will match the time on their analog clocks and repeat it several times using different times. 4.     Start the matching-the-time activity using the worksheets which include different numbers of questions according to students’ levels of understanding. Students who can already tell time in hours and half-hours may start practicing reading time in hours and minutes. 5.     Provide students with the find-a-clock worksheets. Explain the activity: In pairs, students walk around inside the school, find as many clocks as possible and record the time displayed on the clocks on their worksheets, while specifying where they are. 6.     After the activity, collect the worksheets. Lesson 3: 1.     Talk about what you usually do in a day, writing down on a white board both several particular times of the day and the activities you do at those times. 2.     Provided students with the my-day worksheets and have them write down the times and draw their activities. 3.     Ask some students what they do at the certain times based on the information written on their worksheets. Encourage them to use the subject and the predicate by recasting. 4.     Using Power Point slides, introduce how to create a simple sentence. 5.     Make pairs and have students do the same activity: One student asks his or her partner what he or she does at the certain time, and the partner answers and writes down the sentence on his or her worksheet and then take turns.   6.     Collect the worksheets. Lesson 4: 1.     Show a video in which you talk about what you do at four o’clock, six o’clock and eight o’clock using simple sentences. 2.     Review how to make a simple sentence, asking some students questions such as “At noon, what do you usually do?”. 3.     Provide the simple-sentence worksheets which include different numbers of questions according to students’ levels of understanding and have students review how the subject and the predicate work in the sentences. 4.     Explain the project, citing the video shown earlier: In the last lesson of this unit, all the students make presentations about what they or their family members including their pets usually do after they go home. They include four different simple sentences to describe what they do at particular times in their presentations, using at least two different subjects and four different times. They can make presentations in their own styles such as using pictures, videos or some sheets of papers. 5.     Students start brain storming in small groups and other preparation by helping each other.      Lesson 5: 1.     Pass out evaluation sheets and explain how their presentations should be made, encouraging students. 2.     Each student makes a presentation and receives comments from peers. 3.     All students evaluate each presentation including their own. 4.     Provide comments and celebrate students’ achievement.

Lesson plan 1: literacy-acquisition stages and a reading/writing strategy/activity appropriate for each stage for third grade English as a Second Language (ESL) students

The grade level: Third grade

Content area 1: Language arts

Content area 2: Science

Theme: What is solar energy?

Stages of Literacy Development and Reading/Writing Strategies/Activities

Emergent Stage:

Students in this stage begin to be aware that print carries a message, display directional movement (left to right; top to bottom; return sweep) (School World, 2017) and develop the ability to focus attention on letter-sound relationships (Reading Rocket, 2017). They may enjoy reading using pictures and visual cues, such as the beginning and ending letters of words (Dam, 2017). It is very important for students in this stage to have the foundational literacy skills, such as alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness and print awareness. Therefore, instruction should help them understand the relationship between oral and written language. Reading simple phase books with pictures, which include repeated one or two-sentence patterns and use present tense and first person (Dam, 2017) is recommended. In order to foster students’ writing skills, helping them recognize, copy, or remember the spellings of high-frequency English "sight words" (The Education Alliance at Brown University, 2017) is effective.

Reading/writing strategy/activity for Emergent Stage:

As a lesson preparation, the teacher will make a shorter and easier version of Curious George Discovers the Sun (Rey, 2015): The teacher will pick up ten pictures from the book and write down one line of the story description on the back side of each picture. In the beginning of the lesson, the teacher will have students review what they have learned in the previous lessons regarding the relationship between the sun and heat. The teacher may use students’ native languages to clarify the meanings of the vocabulary words if necessary. The teacher will group students in pairs and pass out the copies of the pictures so that they can look at them. The teacher will read out the sentences, showing the pictures at the same time. Students are allowed to ask questions regarding the meanings or the pronunciations of the words as well as the meanings of the sentences during the reading activity. After the teacher finishes reading, he or she will pass out alphabet cards to each pair. The teacher will ask students several questions regarding what has been read, such as “What is George trying to use to cook the lasagna?” All the answers will be one word and students will answer each question by spelling out the words with the alphabet cards. The teacher will provide answers by spelling out each word on a white board and have students practice saying each word focusing on its syllable.

Early Stage:

In the Early Stage, students have a solid knowledge of the alphabet and are learning to decode by sounding out words (Ford & Palacio, 2015). They still have limited vocabulary and texts should have controlled vocabulary so that they can encounter only familiar words as they read (Ford & Palacio, 2015). They begin to monitor own reading and self-correct (School World, 2017). They also recognize spelling patterns (Dam, 2017) but they may make spelling mistakes and use invented spelling when they write. They need to learn to read and spell common, irregularly spelled, words so that they can recognize them easily when reading, and spell them effortlessly in writing (The Balanced Literacy Diet, 2016).

Reading/writing strategy/activity for Early Stage:

After reviewing the previous lessons, the teacher will group students in pairs and all the activities in the lesson will be done in the same pairs. The teacher will read out Curious George Discovers the Sun (Rey, 2015). If students find anything difficult to understand, they can freely ask the teacher. After reading the book, the teacher will pass out ten pictures which have been copied from the book. Each student will create a written description of each picture in a few sentences. The use of invented spellings will be allowed when they are not sure how to spell a word. After finishing writing the descriptions, students will read them out to their partners.

Transitional/ Fluent Stage:

Students are able to read independently, and they can read silently (Ford & Palacio, 2015). They recognize the importance of monitoring reading for understanding (School World, 2017) and retell what is read in writing and engage in discussions about it (Reading Rocket, 2017). They can also take notes and make chart data, and recognize different literary genres (Dam, 2017). By this stage, the focus of reading instruction shifts to comprehension because they have become efficient at decoding (Ford & Palacio, 2015). At this stage, reading aloud to a partner is an effective way to build fluency and they need to have many opportunities to practice writing (The Balanced Literacy Diet, 2016).

Reading/writing strategy/activity for Transitional/ Fluent Stage:

After reviewing the relationship between the solar energy and temperature, the teacher will provide students with the copies of Curious George Discovers the Sun (Rey, 2015). Students will read out the text in partners. One student will be a reader and the other will be a listener and after finishing reading one page, they will switch their roles. When they find unfamiliar words, they will write them down on their notepads. After the reading-out activity, each student will look up the meaning of unknown words in their dictionaries and then summarize the text using cause and effect expressions including the words such as because, since and as a result, as much as possible. Students will share their summaries with their partners and then other four classmates.

Brain-based research on bilingualism

Language Acquisition and Baby Talk Synthesis

                Babies’ language development is greatly influenced by their home language environments. Since babies in their mothers’ wombs become able to hear at around 20 weeks, their language acquisition starts before they are born. Even after they are born, “babies as young as seven months can distinguish between, and begin to learn, two languages with vastly different grammatical structures” (University of British Columbia, 2013). Bilingualism has already started at this point. Around eight months of age, they start to babble, which is a sign of trying to imitate spoken words. According to University of Iowa (2014), “infants whose mothers responded to what they thought their babies were saying, showed an increase in developmentally advanced, consonant-vowel vocalizations, which means the babbling has become sophisticated enough to sound more like words”. This means babies learn language based on what they hear. Since they attend to their caregivers’ conversations and try to understand the meanings, they will be able to separate the use of the two languages if they are raised in bilingual environments. Therefore, the researchers consider that “the best way for children to learn a second language is through social interactions and daily exposure to the language” (University of Washington, 2011).

Language Acquisition and the Impact of Speaking More Than One Language

                Even though there may still be a concern that bilingual children may get confused about the use of two languages, speaking more than one language has positive impacts on the way languages are acquired. According to Association for Psychological Science (2013), bilinguals have two different sounds systems and they can switch between one language and the other by using the sound systems, if they learn two languages at an early age. In addition, University of Haifa (2011) explains “languages reinforce one another, and provide tools to strengthen phonologic, morphologic and syntactic skills. These skills provide the necessary basis for learning to read”. By gaining this strong basis, bilinguals develop a critical cognitive function, which allows them to smoothly learn another language. Moreover, “bilingualism serves as enrichment for the brain and has real consequences when it comes to executive function (Northwestern University, 2012)”. Therefore, “bilingual children develop a better working memory (University of Granada, 2013)” and “are faster and more efficient in certain tasks in which executive functions are used due to a different form of cerebral control (Universitat Jaume I, 2010)”. Bilinguals seem to be able to efficiently develop their language skills.  

Impact of Second Language Acquisition After Adolescence

                According to Cell Press (2012), “lifelong experience in managing attention to two languages reorganizes specific brain network, creating a more effective basis for executive control and sustaining better cognitive performance throughout the lifespan”. This means second language acquisition after adolescence presents several benefits in daily life. One of the benefits is that bilinguals can focus on what really matters and ignore what doesn’t (Northwestern University, 2014). This is because they are better at filtering out the competing words since their brains are used to controlling two languages and inhibiting the irrelevant words (Northwestern University, 2014). Since bilinguals develop better inhibitory control, they can work more effectively and efficiently than monolinguals. Another benefit is that bilingualism may delay aging. As one ages, his or her cognitive flexibility declines. However, since speaking more than one language can constantly stimulate cognitive activity, consequently, it can prevent cognitive function from slowing down. Northwestern University's Viorica Marian (2014) describes, "Using another language provides the brain built-in exercise. You don't have to go out of your way to do a puzzle because the brain is already constantly juggling two languages". This may also play a protective role against Alzheimer's disease and dementia.  

Language Development 4: 27 months old

Ai was pretending to read, using the sticker and clearly said " rabbit", " the end " and " I did it".