Lesson Plan Update

Below is an update to my lesson plan for my 30 minute teaching block with professor Kolcun's beginner ESL class.

Lesson Plan

Dylan Sneade

Setting: Adult education, 5-15 students of various ages, L1s and educational backgrounds

Time: 30 minutes

Class: My daily schedule

Educational Standards: CASAS

Phonology: L1.3 – assessed informally via conversations and schedule presentations

Vocabulary: L2.3 – assessed informally via conversations and schdule presentations

Grammar: L3.1 – assessed informally via writted schules

Vocabulary: W4.2, 4.3 – assessed informally via written schedules and presentations

Organization: W5.2, 5.3 – assessed informally via written schedule

Language Objectives:

1.       SWBAT create their own daily schedule and present to the class orally.

Materials:

1.       ESL Video selection

2.       FluentU video selection

3.       Whiteboard

4.       Notebooks and writing utensils

Series of events:

(Preparation)

-Review block content.

-Review objectives.

-Ensure all materials for students of varying levels are present and available.

(Class )

-View ESLVideo viewing on a day in the life timeline. (est. 10 min)

                -Answer multiple choice questions on the video.

                -Discuss what was watched.

 

-View FluentU video on daily schedule. (est. 10 min)

                -Review important vocabulary from the viewing.

                -Discuss what was watched.

 

-Discuss personal hobbies and jobs. (est. 5 min)

 

-Write short example for myself on board, showing order. (est. 10 min)

 

-Class complete’s own daily timeline in complete sentences. (est 5 min)

                -Students share their schedule with others.

 

-Transition to class’ main teacher’s lesson plans.

 

(Post Block Review)

-Did students meet class objectives?

-What can be done to improve group success?

-How should this block’s learning affect the next block’s learning?

Class Dinner

 Class Dinner

This week we were able to go on a class field trip for the beginner students. We met up as a class and walked down the street to a local Italian restaurant. By this point in the semester (the last week) the students had grown accustomed to having me around and we all happily talked about our hobbies and work on the way. We showed up early before the evening rush, to try to eliminate any extra background noise that might make hearing the waiter difficult. 

We worked with students to study the menu and decide which foods they like from the selection, a lot of dishes they had never tried, so we made our recommendations based off what we worked on in class. We had done activities talking about our favorite foods etc. All students this day were Spanish L1, so they worked as a group to help each other and we just supervised and made our recommendations as were needed. Everyone practiced their orders with both teachers before we called over the waiter. Dinner went smoothly and everyone had a great time. Afterwards we all stopped back at the classroom to pass out cake and sing happy birthday for one of the students! The students request had been a pineapple tres leches cake, and it was delicious. It had been a good semester for them all and it was a great way to have the last class before breaking for a few weeks. 

Below is an image of the restaurant's menu, which myself and Mrs. Kolcun used to introduce different foods to the students, who had not seen many of the dishes. Learning new words takes on a new meaning when you get to eat it.

Spanish L1 Material

 A lot of Support

    

    The hardest part of any journey is the first few steps, and after that it's routine. Due to the high number of Spanish L1 students, there are an awful lot of bilingual text books and references at the school. I see this as a good thing, however a problem of equity comes up when speakers of other languages do not have similar materials made available to them. The issue boils down to funding. The program is always tight on funds and spending money on materials that don't reach the masses tend to go undersupported. The staff is a two-person wreaking crew that can only get so much done every day, so it makes sense they don't have a larger variety of option available, but they are continually re-assessing the needs of the student base and trying to make improvements. 

Below is an example of a textbook found in the beginners class. I worry that speakers of other languages will be discouraged by lack of support.

Input Theories

 Input Theories

Write Explanation Here

End of the Line

 New Semester Begins

I kept up with the beginner's class instructor as the semester ended. Both myself and the instructor agreed that observing/helping with the first few weeks of the beginner's class would be a good experience. I was able to spend some time observing a class as they developed routines. This was the biggest take-away for me. Routines. The first week of class was a struggle for the instructor, and it makes sense why she considered quitting during her first week a few years ago. With no experience in ESL, just as a 3rd grade teacher, it must have been difficult. She was not fortunate enough to spend time observing a whole semester of classes and have a game plan going in. She just had to show up, and try to manage a class for 3 hours, which is an eternity in a room where communication is limited (mostly non-existant). What I found for the class was setting a strong routine that is followed to a T helps the class flow. Students understand that when they show up, they will sign in, take a book, and grab the name placard that they made. Once the class has been going for a while they will get rid of the name tags, but it's a lot of students up front. 

The week 1 class understood the basics, but a lot of finger pointing was required to ensure students signed in properly and were settled in. All students had some words or phrases known, but couldn't hold a conversation. The few students that completed the previous semester but wished to remain in beginners helped the new students, but that sort of help was available due to the volume of Spanish speakers. There was 1 Student from Ukraine that had different challenges. She uses a different alphabet. All students began back with letters: while she was learning them, other students learned new vocabulary through them. the instructor had a deck of cards with a letter, word, and a picture on them. It was a built in way to scaffold for all the students. One student learned letters, other students worked on their spelling, as Spanish letters can often be pronounces different than their English counterparts etc. A lot of time was dedicated to basic greeting practice, and activities using pictures to learn words. It seemed to be scaffolded well because everything was a different topic from the previous semester, so everyone was able to learn something. As I came into class the 3rd week, the class had a comfortable rhythm, students were all friendly, and it felt the same as the seasoned bunch from the semester prior (some were the same ones). It's definitely nice to see that it just takes a week or two to get a classroom comfortable. 

Of note in the final week is a good bit of staff drama. The full time faculty had pushed out a notice to all instructors that post class analysis of standards must be done for all students (daily tally of standards met, teacher's notes, etc). While our instructors do a lot of informal assessment, and the state required testing occurs frequently, this is definitely something worthy of time, however it's not ideal. all instructors are paid hourly and are constantly fighting to make more money as the hourly rate is not great. They put in an incredible ammount of work and the wages hardly cover gas and their time. To truly do daily write ups for each student would be another hour of work a day, which would require more pay. I don't believe the school intends to pay them for this time, which raises some hairs on the instructor's necks for sure. We had some long dicussion about making the job worth your time. We're in the profession because we love to teach and love helping others, but at what point is a job not worth the wages?

Work Hard Play Hard

 Assessment

Over the past few weeks I have been slowly wrapping my brain around how assessment and evaluation are implemented across the system and how classes are coordinated. New students come into the school, take an electronic standardized test through the CASAS system, and the score places them in a course level. Most levels are available both day and night, so the students' availability will place them. 

Once students have been added to a class roster, barring any requests to the school staff, that is where they will attend, however changes are made as requested by the students. Throughout the semester the students are monitored closely by the teachers by daily informal assessments. Classes sart big and the teachers all admitted that the first few weeks are quite overwhelming, however after the first few weeks of any given semester, daily student attendence often drops down to 12 or less, which makes informal assessment much more feasible. Daily assignments are collected and given informal grading to store as record for the staff and university, however the real money maker for the school is the formal evaluation(quite literally, the classes are free to students, so the students must test in order to have the school recieve federal/state funding). Each semester 1-2 times students will be formally assessed by CASAS online testing for progress checks. Once a student has reached a particular score, they will be ready for the next level of class.

This is where the teachers often find it tricky: students don't want to leave the class they are in. To me, this is entirely understandable. I've been in formal lessons and tutoring sessions for Japanese and it does take a leap of faith to start working in a new setting or a new teacher. Generally students who work hard and progress accept their new assignment and continue on, but often times students will stop coming to class in that new semester and lose interest in the program. Other times students request to stay with the teacher they are most comfortable with and that is sometimes honored by the school. Most of the courses can be labeled as mixed level, and if a student is in the right score range, they can stay in the same class again. There is 1 student in the beginners class again. He was a VERY hardworking student (worked 10 hour days roofing, and almost never missed class at night). When the class restructured for the new semester, he actually had some hiccups with assignments, which is great in my opinion because no two classes operate the same and he will grow from it.

End of the day the primary struggle the classes face are attendance issues. When the students show up they improve, and when they don't they stagnate. It was almost 1 to 1, the students with the most attendence improved significantly and passed tests to either move up in classes or exited the program into an associates track at the college, or continued community English classes hosted by one of the teachers a couple times a week. I have to say it's a great community of educators that really care about the students and bend over backwards to help those who want to learn.

Class Dinner

This week we were able to go on a class field trip for the beginner students. We met up as a class and walked down the street to a local Italian restaurant. By this point in the semester (the last week) the students had grown accustomed to having me around and we all happily talked about our hobbies and work on the way. We showed up early before the evening rush, to try to eliminate any extra background noise that might make hearing the waiter difficult. 

We worked with students to study the menu and decide which foods they like from the selection, a lot of dishes they had never tried, so we made our recommendations based off what we worked on in class. We had done activities talking about our favorite foods etc. All students this day were Spanish L1, so they worked as a group to help each other and we just supervised and made our recommendations as were needed. Everyone practiced their orders with both teachers before we called over the waiter. Dinner went smoothly and everyone had a great time. Afterwards we all stopped back at the classroom to pass out cake and sing happy birthday for one of the students! The students request had been a pineapple tres leches cake, and it was delicious. It had been a good semester for them all and it was a great way to have the last class before breaking for a few weeks. 

Above is an example of CASAS standards for level 1 Listening skills. It covers the 4 skills of language learning similar to WIDA, just set up different, and without the CAN DO(tm) descriptors.